A different world
by son-goku5
Summary: In a world of deceit, Penny is down on her luck and is forced to be a prostitute for her pimp Kurt. But when a small bespectacled man hires her for an unusual job, her world changes. Rated M for violence and some smut. - Chapter 12 up.
1. Chapter 1

**In Chapter 31 and 32 of my "The Chris Expansion" story, a reader showed in his reviews that he really doesn't understand what fan fiction is. Since he reviewed chapters that were already online for a while, I ranted about it in Chapter 37 and wrote that if I wanted to write Leonard as an assassin and Penny as a prostitute, I could. From that day on, this particular scenario kept ghosting around in my head.**

**So, I decided to write a story with that premise in mind.**

**Just to avoid people drawing their own comparisons, I love the John Wick series with Keanu Reeves. So this story will draw some ideas from that movie franchise. I also took some aspects of another character I created for my Castle fanfic.**

**Hope you enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.**

* * *

"Is that all?" came the question from Kurt, stabbing into Penny's heart.

"Yes, that's all." she nodded, disgusted.

"How many did you have?"

"Five." she told him.

"I counted six." Kurt looked at her threateningly.

"I left the last one when he brought out the chains." Penny shrugged but was suddenly rocked back when a hand smacked into her face.

"I expect the money from six customers!" Kurt shouted at her. "Get cleaned up and get back out there again and don't come back until you got the money!"

Shoving her into the wall, Kurt left the small apartment she had. Penny slid down and sighed heavily, then got back up again and headed into her bathroom. She undressed and stepped into the bathtub, opening the faucet and letting the water hit her skin. As she so often did when showering, she cried heavy tears of sadness and desperation. As her body went numb from the cold water, she asked herself a question she asked almost every night.

How did it happen?

She used to be a young girl dreaming of being a famous actress. When she met Kurt, he had been a great guy, nice to her, promising her to take her to Los Angeles so she could be a movie star. But after she had left her family and moved with him to Los Angeles, everything had gone downhill. Unfortunately, acting jobs didn't come and Kurt had suggested a different source of income.

At first it had been innocuous. Playing on her natural beauty, he had suggested her being an escort to make some money. For the first months, that what she did, playing arm candy to wealthy people who wanted a young woman at their side. She couldn't even remember when she had let Kurt convince her to have let the first man have sex with her. Four years later, she was forced to do that regularly and Kurt not only was her pimp but had hooked several more girls, all of whom he kept in line with fear.

And for the millionth time since she got here, Penny sat in her bathtub and cried.

"Hey there, looking for a good time?" Penny smiled at the man through the car window, a man with glasses and who looked rather short and a lot different than her usual clientele, much cleaner for one.

"You'll do." he nodded, pointing his head at the passenger seat.

Disgusted with herself, she walked around the car and got into the passenger seat, the man driving away. Expecting him to stop somewhere so he could do her in the car, or maybe a cheap motel, she was surprised when he drove into midtown, stopping at one of the most prestigious hotels in the city.

"Put this on." the man told her and handed her a small box.

"Why?" she asked, seeing a ring in it, then noticing how he put a same-looking ring on his finger.

"Just do it." he turned his head to her, the look in his eyes making her follow his command immediately.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked, a bit fearful.

"Just play along." he said and got out of the car, opening her door like a gentleman and waving over a busboy to take a couple of suitcases out of the trunk.

"Welcome." a receptionist greeted them when they entered the hotel.

"Smith." her new fake husband smiled at the receptionist, a complete transformation from the serious man that picked her up.

Also smiling, playing her role as his wife, she hung on his arm and walked with him into the elevator, the busboy pushing the trolley with the luggage. The elevator brought them to the floor their room was on and the man led her into the honeymoon suite where the busboy unloaded the luggage and held out his hand, the man giving him a ten dollar bill as tip.

"So, what's your name?" she asked.

"Call me John." came the reply, while John was opening a bag and took out a cloth roll.

"John Smith?" she looked incredulous. "That couldn't sound more fake if you wanted to."

"Is enough for now." he shrugged.

"So, what happens now?" she asked, wondering when he would do the thing he hired her services for.

"Enjoy the minibar." he shrugged and opened the cloth roll, revealing a large amount of knives and other cutting equipment.

"What the...?" she shrieked and jumped up, grabbing the first item she could reach. "Stay away from me, you maniac!"

"If you intend to kill me with this scalpel, you're holding it wrong." John said, his face even breaking out in a very small smile.

"What?" she was confused and subsequently disarmed when John hit her arm three times at certain points, making her lose the scalpel and lean backwards in fear.

"If you want to kill someone with a scalpel, you need to hold it like this." he said, holding the scalpel at its end alongside his wrist. "And then you can slash forward. With the way you held it, you would have to move your arm away from your target before attacking him or her, giving your target time to defend him- or herself."

"Seriously, who the hell are you and why did you hire me?" she asked nonplussed.

"Lets just say I have a job to do and I need this room and you for reconnaissance." John replied, unpacking another cloth roll, revealing a number of gun parts. "And I couldn't reserve the honeymoon suite alone."

"So, what exactly can I do?" she wanted to know.

"You just stay here, do whatever you like. Use the Jacuzzi, take a bubble bath, empty the minibar, order room service, whatever you want." he shrugged again and began cleaning the equipment he brought.

Mollified for the moment that he wasn't going to use those knifes for some form of violent sex thing, she headed to the bathroom and gave an almost silent squeal at the sight of the huge and especially clean bathroom, a large bathtub and Jacuzzi greeting her. She opened the faucet to fill the tub and perused the available bath soaps to add to them, deciding on a lavender scented oil.

"This is heaven." she hummed after lowering herself down into the water.

As she soaked in the scented water for minute after minute, reality hit her. This was a job she was hired for, not really knowing anything about it while not even sure how much she would be paid. Her usual fee normally was for thirty minutes or less, so if this John guy essentially bought her for several days, would he pay her for that amount of time? Would she be brave enough to demand it from him, given that he seemed to be able to take her down easily?

"Finish in there." John's voice and his hand banging on the door startled her. "We got work to do."

"Be right out." she called back, quickly getting out of the bathtub and wrapping a towel around her body before leaving the room. "Want me to be on top or bottom?"

"What?" he looked her confused. "No, not that."

"What then?"

"Put that on." he pointed to a large cardboard box on the bed.

She took it into the bathroom and opened it, seeing two more cardboard boxes, which she unpacked and opened as well. One contained a plethora of high-end makeup while the other's contents made her gasp. She took out the most beautiful dress she had ever seen in her young life, holding it against her and almost weeping at its beige beauty.

She administered a healthy amount of makeup and put on the dress, marveling at how well it fit, not a spot on it too tight or too lose. It hugged her curves in the most accentuating manner, making her wonder what kind of work he had in mind for her. For all she knew, it could be just a fetish of his, maybe a Pretty Woman fantasy he wanted to bring to life, though the disassembled weaponry didn't fit.

"You look beautiful." his voice surprised her when she came out, seeing one of his eyebrows raised in an appreciative manner, which was until then the most direct display of emotion she had seen from him.

"You clean up nice." she commented, looking at him dressed in an elegant tux which somehow, for some reason she couldn't pinpoint, made him appear even more dangerous. "So, what is this job?"

"Information gathering." he replied. "On my part, you're job is to look pretty and stay at my side."

"I can do that." she nodded.

"Lets go." he said and held out his arm.

Arm in arm, they left the room and rode the elevator down to the ground floor. To her surprise, he led her out the backdoor, where a limo was waiting, opening the door to let her in and get in behind her. Without a word being spoken, the driver started the car and began driving away from the hotel, only to turn around and take another route back to the hotel, where they stopped at a red carpet on the other side of the road.

"This is high brow." she commented.

"Yep." he nodded and they left the car when a valet opened the door.

He put out his arm again and they walked along the red carpet, photographers taking pictures of them. She smiled widely, feeling like having the career she always wanted to have, managing to hold it until they were past the cameras where her face fell again when reality hit her. John handed a ticket to the man at the door who let them into the building.

The noise level made it almost feel as if she walked into a wall. There were tuxedo-clad men everywhere, pretty women on their arms who chatted with each other while the men did the same, just with different topics. A large finger food buffet was waiting to be picked, champagne flutes were brought through the crowd by waiters clad in starched uniforms.

"Here you go." John said, handing her a flute.

"Thanks." she smiled and gladly took it, sampling the bubbly liquid, finding it a much better quality than the crap she usually had to drink.

She accompanied John around the room, watching him speak to several people, his demeanor changing with every single person he talked to. With some, he was aggressive with his words, with others, almost demure. But what every person he talked to did was talk back, saying a lot of things she didn't quite understand. It must have been something good though, since John walked away from those people with a slight satisfied smile on his face.

Several hours later, the two exited the gathering, this time simply walking across the street into the hotel instead of taking the limo again. Penny was slightly buzzed from all the champagne she had consumed, while her partner hadn't even sipped from any flute he had taken. If that was all she had to due while being with him, it would be an easy job.

Unbeknownst to her, a pair of eyes was watching her as she entered the hotel.

* * *

"Whoa!" she gasped when she exited the bathroom, seeing John get dressed, standing with his back to her wearing only a very tight pair of shorts.

It wasn't his lean figure she was mesmerized of, or the muscles in his arms what spoke of a wiry strength waiting to be unleashed. It was the array of scars on his back and his side that made her gape at his appearance. He turned around to look at her, presenting his front and more scars that looked as if he had been shot a hundred times, along with stabbings and other injuries. Other than that, his skin also had a complete lack of tattoos or piercings.

During the last five days, they had spent every minute in the suite. John had stood at the window and watched the building on the other side of the road, mostly looking at an empty office while she spent her time watching TV, eating every meal the hotel offered and a prodigious use of the Jacuzzi and bathtub.

At first, they had barely spoken, John simply cleaning his weapons and putting them together before taking them apart again and do some form of slow martial arts exercise daily. On the third day, she had convinced him to at least play a few of the available board games with her and to her surprise, he had agreed.

During that time, she had learned a few things about him. For one, he was almost frighteningly knowledgeable about everything, which came out during their game of Trivial Pursuit, where he answered every single question without even having to think about them. They had played monopoly and poker, where she had won games and even Yahtzee, during which he surprised her by rolling all sixes every time, to which he admitted cheating by throwing the dice in a certain way.

He surprised her even more when he agreed to teach her a few tricks, though it would probably be a long time until she could roll all sixes with five die. It already worked with two though, a fact that made her really happy. He also taught her how to use a knife more efficiently, expanding on his small lecture about the scalpel, giving her hope that she may deal with Kurt one day when he again wanted to beat her.

She had also told him about her life, her decision to become an actress and moving to California with Kurt, who then rented her out as an escort to make money which led to prostitution and a life she couldn't get out of. John never commented on it, simply listened to her as she poured her heart out.

Thinking of her real life made her sad again, a fact that John had quickly picked up on. He never pried though and Penny wasn't sure if she was glad that he didn't say anything or sad that he wouldn't inquire to give her a chance to vent about it.

"What happened to you?" she asked quietly, pointing at his skin but not knowing if she could approach the subject.

"Everyone has a past." he replied vaguely.

"Well, duh." she huffed. "What happened to you that made you do what you do?"

"What do you think I do?" he asked her while putting on a tight, black body suit.

"Given your... uh, tools, I'd say you're some form of hitman." she guessed. "Though I never knew a hitman to attend high class fundraisers and chatting to millionaires."

"Close enough." he shrugged and zipped up his body suit.

"What is that suit you're wearing?" she wanted to know.

"It's called a bodyglove because it gets fitted to your body to be as snug as possible, so nothing flaps or is too tight." he explained. "It shields your body heat from thermal sensors or cameras and combined with a mask can be used to hide in shadows."

"Cool." she had to admit. "Is that leather?"

"No, it's cameoline."

"Never heard of that." she said, touching the material, which felt smooth but thinner than leather.

"It's not available on the market." came his humorless smirk as he added knifes and a gun to his arsenal, somehow stowing it away inside the bodyglove without making it bulge.

"Where are you going?" she asked as he turned to leave.

"To do my job." he replied vacuously and left.

Shrugging, she turned on the TV and perused the cable offering, deciding on some HBO. After watching an episode of a show she has never seen before and had no idea about the content, she got up and walked to the windows, watching the street at night. People went to and fro, the more affluent parts of the citizenry enjoying their evening out.

She picked up the binoculars that John had used sometimes and looked straight out, noticing a light on in an office, seeing an older guy sitting on a couch, his eyes closed and his face peaceful. Thinking that he must have fallen asleep, she tried to place the face of the man, knowing that she had seen it somewhere before.

Unsuccessful in digging up the memory, she turned off the lights and went to bed.

* * *

The next morning, she got up at nine and took a long shower before brushing her teeth. When she got into the main room, she turned on the TV and checked the news, hearing a segment of a millionaire who died of a heart attack last night. At first she wondered why that would make the news until the host told the story of how this old man was under investigation for allegedly raping dozens of underage girls over the years.

She stopped cold when they showed the man in question, Penny recognizing the man from last night. He was the old man who she saw sitting on his couch in the building across the street and now she wondered if John had something to do with his death. As she pondered the implications, she noticed that all his stuff was gone, except for a gym bag sitting on the table with a note on it. She walked to it and picked it up, reading what seemed to be a note from her erstwhile employer, his penmanship beautiful to behold.

_'Your payment is in the bag, along with some bonus. Cover story for the concierge is family emergency, so nobody should be suspicious of you leaving on your own. You should leave town. Don't go home again.'_ she read, then put down the note to open the bag.

"Oh my god!" she gasped after pulling the zipper, finding it full of cash.

She took one of the bundles and unwrapped it, counting the bills. After finishing and re-wrapping it, she counted the bundles and multiplied it, reaching a sum of money she had dreamed of possessing once she made it as a movie actress. She couldn't believe it. John had left her a five million dollar payment for a week of her time which she spent in luxury without ever having to get naked for him.

She sat back and cried. Whereas before, she had cried tears of sadness and despair, this time she was crying tears of joy. With this money, she could start a new life, away from Kurt and doing what she wanted to do. She dried her tears and sat back down, calming herself before going to wash up to get the red out of her eyes and packed the dress into the bag with the money, covering it up.

She left the hotel, the concierge nodding to her and wishing her parents-in-law well, making her wonder why until she remembered the family emergency cover story. She thanked him and left the hotel, wondering where she should go now and apprehensive of carrying millions of dollars with her.

She called a cab and gave the driver her address. Despite the advice that she shouldn't go home, she needed to get her passport and ID and some keepsakes before leaving town. After handing the driver a bill and telling him to keep the change, she hurried into the building and up the stairs, unlocking the door and quickly grabbing the documentation she needed.

"There you are!" a voice she dreaded thundered from behind her, making her drop the bag she was carrying. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Kurt, I'm done!" she shouted at him and turned away again, which was a mistake.

"You're not done until I let you!" he shouted back and pulled her around, pressing his right hand against her throat and pushing her against the wall, a knife in his right hand.

"Kurt..." she croaked, his hand cutting off most of her air supply.

She should have listened to John. She shouldn't have come back to her old apartment. She should have taken the money and left the city, trying to make it somewhere else, build a new life, away from the man she once loved and who now treated her like his property. But like when her parents warned her about Kurt, she just had to have her own way and now she would be paying the price.

"You think I'm simply letting you walk away?" Kurt growled. "You disappear for hours and then I see you walk into a high class fundraiser with a man on your arm and then you still don't come back for a week! Do you think this is a movie?"

"Let me go!" she tried to kick him.

"Lets see how this guy feels about you after I'm done with you!" Kurt threatened. "Maybe he'll... argh!"

Before Kurt could follow up on his threat, he felt two sharp kicks hitting the back of his knees, causing him to drop down. Gasping for air once his hand was gone from her throat, it took her a minute to realize what was happening. John was standing behind Kurt, his right arm holding Kurt's own right arm at length, the knife dropping to the ground when John pinched a certain spot in Kurt's wrist.

John's left arm was snaked under Kurt's armpit and his left hand rested on Kurt's throat, his middle finger pressing into the skin. What surprised her the most was the fact that Kurt had a foot of height and at least a hundred pounds over John, yet the smaller man held him easily. Kurt wasn't even fighting to get up, the pressure John put on his throat apparently enough to dissuade her pimp from doing anything.

"Is this him?" John asked, nodding down to Kurt.

"Yes." she sniffed, wiping a tear away.

"I told you not to come back here." John said accusingly.

"I know." Penny nodded. "And I should have listened to you. But I'll leave now."

"I'll find you wherever you go!" Kurt growled, finding some courage despite being held immobile.

"I don't think you're aware of your situation right now." John said calmly, easily keeping Kurt down despite the struggles he now put on.

"You can't hold me forever!" Kurt snapped back. "As soon as I'm up, I'll break you in half.

"No, I won't." John said, still calm, which quickly made Kurt shut up. "But depending on her, I won't have to."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kurt asked, his voice displaying apprehension.

"Do you want him to die?" John asked Penny, looking her straight in the eye.

"No, please!" Kurt begged, his precarious position suddenly dawning on him fully, his body starting to struggle even more but still easily held by the smaller man. "Penny, please, remember the good times we had."

"I do remember those." Penny nodded, Kurt relaxing a bit upon hearing that. "But I also remember how you rented me out for other men to have sex with me and beating me when I brought in less money than you expected or not doing the sick things some of the clients wanted." she screamed loudly.

"Penny, please!" Kurt whispered.

"Kill him." she told John, looking at him.

Without breaking eye contact with her, John moved his left hand, snapping Kurt's head left, his neck breaking audibly. He let go and Kurt's slack body fell to the floor, his empty eyes staring up accusingly at Penny who looked down at his lifeless corpse with a small amount of regret and a lot of satisfaction. From now on, she would be fully free of him to start a new life.

"In thirty minutes, three men will arrive here." John told her after using his phone and handed her two intricate coins. "One will introduce himself as George. Give him these and they will take care of the corpse."

With those words, he turned around to leave. With another look at the corpse of her pimp, she felt a freedom she hadn't felt since she was a kid. In her bag was enough clean money to buy her twenty new ID's, and have enough left to live life on her terms, as long as she didn't buy everything that struck her fancy. She could go back to Nebraska and reconnect with her family, apologize for not listing to them and figure out what to do.

"Wait!" she stopped him. "Could you at least tell me your name?"

"My name is Leonard." he said after several seconds of looking at her. "Live your life."

Yeah, she could to that. She thought about it as she watched him leave her apartment.

Or she could something completely different...

* * *

**Well, this is it. No idea yet if this will be a one-shot or a multi-chapter story, it will depend on the reaction.**

**For those who also read my other stories, I'm still writing those even with the difficulties I have currently.**

**Review please :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**I let my TBBT stories lie for a while, having had a writer's block when it came to those and then the show ended. It's very hard to get back to something when you don't see it on a regular basis. But since I usually don't like to leave things unfinished, this chapter is my attempt to get back into the groove, so to speak.**

**Hope you enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.**

**Disclaimer2: I'm again using the Penny family members that TerribleWaitress created, simply because I'm used to it :D**

* * *

"Mom!" Penny managed to croak before she couldn't hold it in anymore and burst into tears.

"Penny!" Meryl could only gasp as Penny dropped her bags and slammed into her mothers arms.

For several minutes, Penny just cried into her mother's shoulder, feeling the weight of her previous years pushing her down before getting lifted back up. Meryl just held her, knowing that right now she shouldn't say anything. Penny kept crying, letting all her worries flow out of her, even the small pang of guilt she felt at Kurt's death.

"Alright, the pigs are taken care of, maybe we could..." her dad's voice shocked her from her teary daze. "Slugger?"

"Dad!" Penny said with quivering lips before bursting into more tears.

Wyatt had enough sense to not say anything and just walked over and opened his arms for her. Penny walked into his embrace and kept crying until she was spent, her strength leaving her completely. The next thing her parents knew was their daughters in an exhausted sleep. Wyatt picked her up and carried her upstairs to her old room, putting her down on the bed and tucking her in.

"I put her to bed." he told his wife when he came back down, finding Meryl in the dining room, her rigid body blocking the view on the dinner table. "What's going on?"

"I opened her bags to see if I should wash her clothes." Meryl said quietly.

"And?" Wyatt asked, getting next to her and seeing the open bag. "Holy shit."

"There were some clothes in the first bag but the second..." she whispered and pointed to the bundles of money.

"My god." Wyatt gasped and lifted one of the bundles. "Ten grand apiece and there are lots of those in here."

"What should we do?" Meryl wondered. "Talk to her about? Call the police?"

"Why the police?"

"Wyatt, our daughter has what looks like several million dollars in cash, do you think that came from legal sources?"

"We should wait for her to wake up and explain, don't you think?" Wyatt looked at his wife before putting the money back into the bag and lifting it. "Jesus, this is heavy."

"What are you going to do with it?" Meryl wanted to know.

"I'll bring it into her room and leave the bag open, so she knows that we saw it." Wyatt said. "If she doesn't say anything about it, it could be a sign that this is from something illegal."

"What did she get mixed up in." Meryl worried, her mind whirling with the possibilities and almost always settling on something drug related.

"I wonder where that money came from." Wyatt said after he came back down and grabbed a beer from the fridge.

"Where could it have come from unless it's drugs." Meryl mused. "I mean, what else could she have done that netted her that much money in cash."

"Maybe she had an acting job?" Wyatt suggested.

"They don't pay in cash, not even for porn." Meryl rolled her eyes, inwardly hoping that Penny hadn't been doing porn, though it would still be better than dealing drugs.

"I don't think we should speculate, otherwise we'll drive us crazy." Wyatt sighed and turned on the TV.

* * *

When Penny woke up again, she felt the sun on her face. After enjoying it for a few seconds, panic hit her, since waking up with the sun shining through her bedroom window meant that she had slept until noon and missed at least two possible clients, which usually resulted in severe beating by Kurt. She sat up quickly and was about to jump out of bed when she realized that she was in her old room at her parent's farm, the familiar furniture and even the old posters of her childhood still there. With a sigh, she remembered coming home and crying herself out in her parents' arms. Kurt was dead and there were five million dollars in her bag, just waiting to be spent.

"Shit!" she cursed and sat up quickly.

Where was the bag with the money? Had her mother opened it due to her propensity of taking her children's clothes to wash them? What would she have thought where it came from? Penny looked around and saw the bag next to her bed but her mind started racing even more when she saw the zipper open and some of the bundles showing.

So her parents had seen the money. What would they be thinking? If she wanted to avoid speculation, she would have to come clean about how she made it. But how could she do that without telling them what she did for the last few years since leaving them with a guy she thought she loved and then not contacting them even once out of shame?

"Better face this head-on." Penny said to herself with a sigh and got up to take a shower.

After drying herself off, she put on the clothes she had worn before. A pair of sweatpants and a sweater followed it and Penny breathed a sigh of relief at the prospect of not slathering her face in cheap makeup to make herself look as good as possible to lure in some ugly guy with the need to release.

"Good morning." her mother said cheerfully, if a bit hesitantly, and Penny felt it was probably due to the fact that she knew about the money.

"Morning, mom." Penny forced herself to smile. "Is dad around?"

"He's taking care of the pigs, why?" Meryl asked.

"I'd like to talk to you both." Penny sighed. "About what I did since I left."

"Alright, I'll get him." Meryl nodded and pointed to the couch before leaving and returning a minute later with Wyatt in tow.

"Okay, here we are." Wyatt sat down in his usual armchair.

"Well, it was like this." Penny started and the words began pouring out of her.

For the next hour, Penny laid out everything. What happened after she moved away with Kurt, how he had promised her the world and how it had come crashing down. How Kurt made her be an escort to earn some money and how it then had spiraled down to prostitution so gradually that she was unable to escape the life despite wanting to once she was neck-deep in it.

"Well, that explains your silence." Wyatt somehow managed to say calmly, despite the rage he felt at the man that had done this to his baby girl.

"How did you finally get out?" Meryl wanted to know, inwardly relieved that it wasn't drugs after all. "And more importantly, where did all that cash come from you have upstairs in your bag?"

"Well, last week, I was approached by a man. He hired me for a job he had to do, so he took me to a fancy hotel and let me do whatever I wanted in the room while he did what he needed to do. After a week, the job was over and he left that money for me. That's when I decided to get away to start a new life away from all the bullshit I had gotten myself into." Penny told them.

"And Kurt just let you leave?" Wyatt asked, hoping that Penny would tell him that her former pimp would come after her so he could kill him himself.

"Kurt is... not a problem anymore." Penny hesitantly said.

"What does that mean?" Meryl wondered.

"Please mom, don't make me tell you, it could be dangerous." Penny begged. "While the man who hired me was nothing but nice to me and never laid a hand on me, I don't know what would happen if I told you about him."

"Is he that dangerous?" Wyatt scoffed. "If he came here, I have a a few shotgun cartridges with his name on it."

"Dad, believe me when I tell you that if he came here with the intent of killing you, I doubt you'd even get to your shotgun before he got you." Penny sighed. "Please just let it go and forget that the man exists."

"Hmpf." Wyatt harrumphed and nodded before getting up to take care of the farm again.

"What are you going to do now?" Meryl asked her.

"I have absolutely no idea." Penny shook her head. "I guess finding my own place for now."

"Nonsense." Meryl stated. "You can stay here as long as you need."

"Thank you." Penny sniffed, wiping away another tear.

"You know what might help?" Meryl gave her a smile. "How about you go shopping? You got some money now."

"That's right." Penny perked up. "But I can't really do a shopping spree, given that I have this money in cash. The last think I want to do is walk around with a hundred grand."

"Put it in the bank." Meryl shrugged.

"Sure, I go to a bank with five million dollars to deposit it." Penny nodded sarcastically. "That won't set off any alarm bells with the bank and they surely won't report it to the government."

"Right." Meryl had to admit. "Well, take a thousand bucks with you and buy some stuff. I'm sure you can do with a couple of new clothes."

"That's true." Penny nodded, thinking of the small travel bag of clothing she had brought, having left all her former work clothes, if she could call them that, back in Los Angeles. "By the way, how are Bridget and Scott doing?"

"Scott's in jail." Meryl sighed. "He got caught cooking meth."

"Oh no." Penny groaned. "Please tell me he didn't do it here on the farm."

"No, he had built a lab in some old shed and was using instructions from the internet on how to do it." Meryl said. "I think he was trying to copy some show he saw on TV about a chemistry teacher becoming a meth cook."

"Never heard of it." Penny shrugged, since she had to spent most of her time on the streets or in dirty motel beds and if she wasn't, she spent it crying herself to sleep. "And Bridget?"

"She married a restaurant manager and lives in Kearney." Meryl told her.

"Is she happy?"

"Very." Meryl nodded. "Though she was disappointed that you didn't come to her wedding. Not that she was able to invite you."

"I know." Penny sighed sadly, knowing that she had more or less severed contact with her family out of shame during her years as a prostitute. "Maybe I can make it up to her with a generous gift. Do they need a car?"

"Penny, unless you go to a shady seller, you can't buy a car with cash anymore." Meryl chuckled.

"Right." Penny realized. "I will find something."

"If you go right now, are you eating lunch in town?" Meryl asked. "Just want to know if I should make some for you too."

"I'll eat in town." Penny nodded and turned around. "I'll go get dressed."

Penny skipped up the stairs and rummaged in her drawers for some underwear. Her eyes fell on a stack of clean clothes, the ones she had brought with her, and she smiled at her mom's consideration of washing and drying her clothes. She took some plain underwear, white slip and white bra and took some old jeans to wear along with an old shirt that was almost too tight to wear from her cabinet, making her wonder if she had either gained weight or if that shirt was one she had worn as a teenager. She liked the picture on it though, so she decided to keep it. As the finishing touch, she grabbed a wrapped bundle of cash from the bag under her bed, taking some of it out.

"Wow, haven't seen that one in a while." her mother commented when Penny came down. "You wore that last when you were fourteen."

"I knew it." Penny giggled. "It's a little tight in the chest area."

"Well, in the woman of this family, the breasts really got big when we were fifteen." Meryl nodded. "Happened to me, to Bridget and to you."

"Still, I like the picture on it." she giggled. "I'm out."

"You wanna take the old truck?" Meryl asked. "Though your dad needs it in the afternoon."

"I think I'll take the bus." Penny said and counted the stack of money she had brought down with her, coming to just over two thousand dollars. "I simply take a cab back with my purchases."

"Suit yourself." Meryl shrugged and handed her a bunch of smaller bills, so Penny wouldn't have to pay for the bus ticket with a hundred dollar bill. "Stay safe."

"Later, mom." Penny smiled after leaving a hundred on the counter as exchange for the smaller bills and walked out of the house and the mile to the bus station, waiting for her transport and getting on it once it arrived.

She paid for the fare and almost an hour later, the bus stopped at the correct station, a short distance away from the mall. Penny walked towards and into it, seeing the familiar bustle of people though it was less than she was used to when she was still a teenager, the slow death of malls across the country apparent in the number of customers.

Penny still enjoyed the bustle, though it felt strange to come here without her friends. She entered the first store, which sold electronics but only perused, not interested today in buying something of that stuff. As she came out and turned towards the first clothing store, she heard a voice calling her name.

"Penny? Is that you?" she heard and looked at the man who had said it, four other guys around him, one of them looking like he lived in a gym.

"Steve?" she asked hesitantly, unsure if he was the guy she remembered from high school.

"Yeah!" Steve grinned and she could see his eyes roam to her chest. "Haven't seen you in a while."

"Yeah, I was in L.A., only came back yesterday." Penny nodded and pointed to the bench in the center of the concourse, sitting down on it, Steve sitting down next to her while his friends kept standing.

"You went there with Kurt, right?" Steven asked.

"Yeah." Penny sighed. "I wanted to be an actress but... thinks didn't work out."

"Still, Kurt was such a great guy, I bet you had a great time with him." Steve grinned widely and Penny remembered them hanging out all the time after school. "I miss the guy and the fun we had."

"Steve, I hate to break it to you but your best bud treated me horribly over the years." Penny stated. "I couldn't care less if you miss him."

"Can you at least give me his phone number?" Steve asked. "It would be great to talk to him again."

"Even if I had it, it wouldn't matter anyway." Penny shrugged.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Steve looked confused.

"Kurt got what was coming to him." Penny shrugged, unable to even fake sadness at the death of her former boyfriend and later pimp and abuser.

"You killed him?!" Steve gasped.

"What? No!" Penny shook her head. "But he was killed by someone he shouldn't have messed with."

"Yeah, right." Steve scoffed. "A guy you didn't like and who treated you badly ends up dead and you have nothing to do with it."

"Exactly." Penny nodded.

"And why should I believe you?"

"The fact that I'm not in jail should be a good indicator, shouldn't it?" Penny rolled her eyes. "You should watch better crime shows. Or less."

While Steve kept talking, voicing more disbelief mixed with accusations, his friends standing around close by, Penny felt someone's eyes on her. She looked around and saw a person who quickly turned away and walked towards the exit. The small stature and the hair, along with the glasses reminded her of her savior and she got up to follow him, just to make sure that he was who she thought he was.

"Hey, where are you going?" Steve called after her as Penny walked past him, following the man she had spotted.

"I don't have time for this, I gotta go." she waved him off and hurried past several other customers of the mall towards the exit, where the man she thought she knew had slipped out of.

Once outside, she turned her head left and right, trying to find him and she was sure that she saw someone slip around the corner. Penny quickly set off after him, wanting to know for sure because if that was indeed who she thought it was, she needed to talk to him. She ran the last few hundred feet, reaching the corner but not seeing anyone.

"Dammit." she cursed and walked a few dozen feet forward, seeing an alleyway but still no trace of the man.

Before she could turn around, she felt a sense of dread before two strong hands grabbed her arms, pulling them behind her back and pushing her forward. She struggled as she was moved into the alley and after fifty feet, she got her left hand free and snapped her elbow backwards, feeling it connect with something and causing whoever was holding her to grunt in pain.

"Stupid bitch!" she heard and then she was turned around, right before a palm connected with her left cheek, leaving a painful sting as she stumbled backwards and fell over something her feet bumped against, falling on her butt and slamming into a hard object.

"Dammit Steve, what is your problem." Penny asked after recognizing her attacker, holding her cheek where he had hit her.

"You killed my friend." Steve accused and came closer.

"I didn't!" Penny shouted, hoping that someone would hear her and investigate but she could see two of Steve's goons standing at the mouth of the alley, being on lookout.

"Steve, get a move on, we want our turn too and we can't stay here too long." the gym guy to Steve's right, who looked like his diet consisted solely of steroids, said and Penny felt a hole opening up in her stomach.

They were going to rape her! After years of being forced to sell her body for sex, these assholes would take what they wanted from her, just when she thought that she had left a life like that behind. She began to cry when Steve ripped the shirt off of her body, exposing her bra-clad breasts and eliciting a whistle from the second of the guys behind Steve who began ogling her body.

"Damn, you've become even hotter since high school." Steve said and dropped his pants, exposing his hardening penis. "Time for you to finally suck on my cock."

"Please, don't do this." she begged him and tried to lean backwards, being stopped by trash container behind her. "HELP!"

"I'm going to shut your mouth with my dick." he threatened and grabbed her head with one hand and his manhood with the other, lining it up but he suddenly let her go and began screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Jesus, what's wrong with you?" the guy to his left asked. "Do you want to lure the cops here?"

"FUCK!" the steroid freak cursed when he saw the reason for Steve's sudden painful scream.

When Penny opened her eyes again to see what had happened, she could only gasp in shock. Her astonished eyes saw the handle of a knife sticking out the back of Steve's testicles, the short blade visible in the front and his scrotum hanging precariously on a piece of skin. As Steve moved, he walked into his buddy and the movement caused his left leg to stay in one place while his right leg shoved against his other.

The pressure of his extremities hitting each other was enough make the blade slice through the rest of the skin, his testicles falling to the ground and the blood pouring freely from the wound. Steve's scream reached an even higher pitch and just as Penny was going to jump up and make a run for it, she noticed that the two guys who had been standing guard at the alley mouth were on the floor, a lone figure standing on top of them.

Due to the shadows of the buildings around them, she could only see his silhouette coming closer and Steve's two friends shouted challenges and threats while Steve himself still cried in pain. As the guy who Steve had bumped into moved towards the lone figure, Steve fell to the ground and the pressure made the knife blade saw into his penis. With a last scream, Steve fell unconscious, the pain finally too much for his brain to handle while the puddle of blood beneath him became bigger and bigger.

"If you're looking for trouble, you came to the right place." the steroid freak threatened and walked up to the shorter man, switchblade in hand.

Before the large guy could even open the switchblade, her rescuer, if he indeed came to her aid, disarmed the guy within half a second. Surprised, the man tried a left swing but the smaller man caught it at the elbow, twisting it around and the sudden imbalance causing the larger man to stumble forward. The smaller man stepped to the side and gave a quick elbow punch against the joint and with an audible snap, the elbow bent inwards where it shouldn't be going, the bone coming out of the arm, indicating a compound fracture.

"What the...?" the other guy tried to say as his buddy began to scream but his buddy's closed switchblade connected to his face less than a second later, the nose breaking audibly and blood squirting everywhere before a palm hit him in the throat, making him go down, gasping for air.

She tried to hide, the sheer brutality of what was happening frightening her more than the promise of gang rape had. Her rescuer, if he was that, grabbed the foot of the guy gasping for air and gave it a quick twist, snapping the ankle and causing the guy to squeal in pain, the trouble he had breathing in making it impossible to get enough air for a scream.

Her rescuer hit the side of the guy's throat with the edge of his hand, causing him to fall unconscious before repeating the same with the steroid freak, shutting up his screams as well. Penny began shaking as she heard footsteps coming closer to where she was huddling and whimpered as she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"I told you to go home." a familiar voice said. "Why are you in this city and how did you find me?"

With a gasp, she looked up and saw the familiar face of Leonard.

* * *

**Dun dun dun :D**

**I know this chapter is shorter than usual but I'm still trying to get back into the groove. Tell me what you think.**

**Review please :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**I hope everyone of you is safe in these times. My sister lost her job last week because she smacked her boss when that woman accused my sister of having had the virus because my sister had the "audacity" to take a two week vacation that had been on the books for six months. Not to mention that the store had been closed anyway because of the virus and the end of my sister's vacation coincided with the loosening of restrictions and the "grand reopening" of the store.**

**Anyway, chapter begins where last ended.**

**Hope you enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.**

**Disclaimer2: I'm again using the Penny family members that TerribleWaitress created, simply because I'm used to it :D**

* * *

"I am home. I mean, my parents. My parents live here. I came home. To them." she stammered, unable to form a longer sentence, partially out of fear.

"I see." Leonard nodded after a few moments of staring into her eyes before getting up and walking over to Steve's unconscious body, taking something out of his pants pocket.

"What is that?" she asked, leaning forward while still on her knees, seeing what looked like a spray bottle.

He didn't answer but sprayed whatever was in that bottle on Steve's crotch wound before taking a lighter and igniting it. A bright flash preceded the smell of burned flesh, making Penny almost hurl but to her surprise, the wound stopped bleeding, having been cauterized by the heat.

"If you throw up, swallow it again. No need to leave DNA evidence of your presence behind." Leonard told her as he pocketed the bottle, his eyes staying on her.

"Jesus." she cursed, swallowing down the bile she felt and noticing his stare.

She followed his gaze and noticed that her position gave him a pretty deep look into her cleavage, given that her shirt was lying ripped a few feet away from her. Somewhat embarrassed, even though dozens of men had seen her like that or with even less clothing, she sat back, crossing her arms in front of her, her hands on her shoulders.

"Here." he said, handing her his jacket, revealing a silk button-up.

"Thanks." she smiled shyly, feeling the high-class material as he collected her ripped shirt. "Wow, this feels nice."

"Lets go before they wake up." he said and led her out of the alley, pausing at the mouth and looking poignantly at her.

"What?" she asked.

"Button up." he chuckled, pointing to her chest where her bra was still visible. "The last thing you need right now is attention."

"Right." she conceded and buttoned up the jacket, leaving only the top button undone. "I look ridiculous."

"Better than walking around just in your bra, don't you think?" Leonard asked and took out his phone.

"You got a point." she had to admit. "Who are you calling?"

"Hey, it's me, I need a favor... Yes, right away... Take my current coordinates, look for any cameras that see the alley mouth I'm standing in front of and make me disappear... Yes, I did... Yes, the usual payment... I will give it to you the next time we meet... Thanks Howard."

"Who did you call?" Penny asked as Leonard put the phone away.

"A friend." Leonard replied cryptically and led her away to what Penny knew to be a very high-brow clothing store that sold suits and dresses.

"Can I help you?" the clerk asked, a very well-dressed man with glasses and hiding a disgusted smirk at her disheveled appearance, while a female store clerk sat at the cashier counter, a bottle of very expensive looking scotch and several empty glasses on there as well. "We can't help her with skinny jeans and tank tops though."

"She needs new clothing." Leonard nodded and held up one of the coins he had given her back in Los Angeles, the ones she had given the cleaner who had taken care of Kurt's body. "And I need to use your... facility."

"I see." the clerk nodded and the woman immediately came to attention, pouring the scotch into two glasses and coming over to hand them to her and Leonard.

"Do you know your measurements?" the female clerk asked.

"The last time I measured, they were thirty-five, twenty-four, thirty-six." Penny told her.

"Come with me." the woman said and led Penny to the changing booths while Leonard walked into the backroom after the man had unlocked the door and handing him the coin as he did so.

"What kind of store is this?" Penny asked.

"Take off the jacket and your pants please." the woman ignored her question but Penny complied, not wanting to create problems for Leonard, and let the woman take her measurements.

"They haven't changed." the woman nodded and wrote something on her notepad. "Do you have a preferred color?"

"I like red." Penny said timidly, feeling completely out of place.

With a last look at her, the woman left Penny alone in the booth. She wondered if she should put her pants on again, since she felt a bit silly standing around in her underwear for that long a time. Just as she was about to do it, she heard footsteps and a few seconds later, the door opened, the woman coming back in and handing Penny a single dress instead of several for Penny to choose from.

She put the dress on and her eyes almost fell out of her sockets when she saw herself in the mirror. The dress fit perfectly, every part hugging her curves and accentuating her body without really showing that much. There was barely any visible cleavage and the butt area also wasn't so tight that it would become an eye magnet.

"Wow." Penny breathed. "This dress is magnificent."

"Will you take it?"

"Hell yeah." Penny giggled. "What's the price tag?"

"The dress is being paid for." the woman told her and picked at her back until Penny heard the sound of scissors, telling her that she had cut off the price tag.

Her eyes went wide when she got a glimpse of it as the woman was crumbling it together, seeing the high four-digit number on the small piece of thin cardboard. She was about to protest when the woman left, leaving Penny dumbstruck in the booth. Penny looked at herself again and felt both guilty and exhilarated, guilty because apparently Leonard would pay for it and exhilarated because of how beautiful the dress was.

"Are you going to pay with cash or credit card?" the male clerk asked when Penny arrived at the counter.

"Cash." Leonard told him and handed him a bunch of bills.

"I pay you back." Penny said as they left.

"No." Leonard simply said and just from the way he said it, Penny knew not to push the issue anymore.

"Why didn't you pay with those coins too?" Penny wanted to know. "I mean, those guys clearly knew what they were."

"Because they run a legitimate business." Leonard replied.

"But you gave him a coin before."

"To use some of his business that is geared to what I do." he said.

"And what exactly do you do?" Penny asked.

"If you haven't figured that out yet, you're not as smart as I thought." he looked at her.

"You kill people." she said quietly.

"Yes, I do." Leonard nodded.

"How can you do that?" she gasped, even though she kinda knew about it. "Do you get some high from that?"

"I don't kill for fun." Leonard told her, his face serious. "I only kill when being hired to."

"And what about Kurt." she challenged his assertion. "You killed him."

"Yes." Leonard nodded. "On your say so."

"What?" she asked shocked.

"I asked you if you wanted him to die." he replied. "And you said yes."

"So, if I had said no, what would you have done?"

"Choked him out." Leonard shrugged. "He'd have woken up about an hour later, the only thing hurt being his ego."

"But he would have come after me."

"He probably would have, yes." Leonard nodded calmly.

"He might have killed me!"

"He might have, yes." Leonard nodded again, still calm.

"And you could have lived with that?" she chuckled sadly.

"Yes." Leonard nodded once more. "Everybody is responsible for his own decisions. If you had told me to let him live and he'd come after you, it wouldn't have been my job to stop him."

"How do you justify taking lives?" she asked quietly, unsure what to talk to him about.

"I don't have to justify anything." he shrugged. "When I get hired to do a job, I'm not the one killing them, I'm just the weapon. Do you hold a gun accountable?"

"A gun doesn't think." Penny argued. "A human does."

"People like me are weapons in the hand of those who hire us." Leonard countered. "The difference is that we can choose the way our targets die to make it as acceptable as possible for their families and friends. I for one choose ways that are the least violent possible."

"That doesn't make sense, dead is dead." Penny scoffed.

"Is it?" Leonard looked at her serious. "Imagine getting a phone call that your father has been stabbed to death. His valuables are still with him so it wasn't a botched robbery. He has no connection to any criminal individuals and the police never finds a lead, much less a suspect. You are left with questions for the rest of your life. Why was he killed? Who did it?

"Now compare that to you getting a call from the police that your father has died in a car crash because his break fluid line had degraded and he couldn't slow his car down to avoid crashing through a guard railing and driving down a cliff. You would still grieve for him but in your eyes, he died from an accident. An unfortunate happening that you wish you could have prevented but in the end, you'd have closure knowing that there wasn't someone still out there who was responsible."

"I hate that this actually makes sense." Penny sighed.

"If it makes you feel better, I don't take jobs taking out ex-wives of rich people who don't want to pay alimony anymore." Leonard added. "Though there are people like me out there who have no problem doing that."

"Then what kind of people do you kill?" she asked, wondering why she wanted to know.

"Corrupt politicians, if their actions caused the deaths of others, rich people who use their wealth and connections to avoid legal trouble, even if they committed heinous acts..."

"Like child rape?" Penny interrupted, remembering the old man she had seen dead after Leonard had gone from the hotel room.

"Like child rape." Leonard nodded. "The people who hire me don't do this because they're bloodthirsty, they do it because they don't have any other recourse to see justice done."

"I have trouble wrapping my head around the fact that there's really an assassin's guild out there." Penny shook her head.

"It's not as conspiratorial as you might think." Leonard chuckled. "There's no shadowy figures sitting around a table somewhere, planning who to kill. It's essentially people like me, sharing manufacturers of the things that we use or information gathering."

"What about the coins?" Penny wanted to know as Leonard sat down on a bench, looking around if there were people close by.

"These are both a way to identify ourselves to people who know about what we do and to pay for things that we need when the money transfer shouldn't be traceable." he explained, holding up two coins, one golden and one silver looking.

"What are they worth?" Penny asked.

"The exchange rate is a thousand dollars per gold coin." he told her. "Silver is a hundred."

"So, removing a body costs three grand?"

"It's one thousand per body." he chuckled. "Plus one coin for them coming in the first place and between one and three coins depending on how far they have to travel."

"They were in my apartment pretty quickly." Penny pointed out.

"The minimum is one coin." he winked at her, an action she had trouble reconciling with the serious man next to her whose job it was to kill people. "There are cleaners in every large city in most countries. If you have bodies in a more remote location, the price goes up not because they have to travel a longer way to you but because they have to take extra care when returning with however many bodies in their vehicle."

"Listen." Penny hesitated after almost a minute of silence. "Earlier you said that you try to do your... thing with the least violence possible."

"Yes?" he looked at her expectantly.

"What was that in the alley?" she asked. "I mean, you cut off Steve's testicles and broke the other guys' bones."

"What happened in the alley was a street fight against multiple opponents with unknown abilities and without any preparation." Leonard explained. "And if you are in such a fight, your first and foremost goal is to incapacitate your opponents. And how do you incapacitate someone? You take away his ability to fight."

"But throwing a knife into his testicles?" Penny shuddered at the memory.

"He was going to rape you." Leonard looked at her seriously. "And someone willing to do that has either done it before or he'll do it again because he got a taste for it."

"What did you do to Steve before we left the alley?" Penny asked to break the next bout of silence. "I mean, what was that stuff?"

"Cauterized his wound." he said, showing her the spray bottle. "This is a powerful coagulant that, when heated, practically explodes to cover a wound of any size like a cap of organic plastic."

"Sounds... painful."

"If the choice is either a short, sharp pain or dying from blood loss, the choice is usually pretty easy." Leonard said. "Though he was unconscious anyway."

"Why are you here anyway?" Penny went to the elephant in the room. "In the city, I mean."

"Why do you think I'm here?" he retorted cryptically.

"You're going to kill someone." she stated.

"Correct." Leonard nodded.

"Is it a bad guy?"

"Of course."

"Who is it?" she wanted to know.

"You're not expecting me to answer that, do you?" he smirked at her.

"You need my help again?"

"No." he shook his head as a black car with tinted windows stopped in front of them, Penny getting nervous as a truly large man exited it, wearing a dark suit. "You go home now."

"Fine, I'll call a cab." she nodded as they both got up.

"This is your cab." Leonard stated, pointing to the car, and handed the driver three silver coins.

"What the...?" she gasped. "Are you for real?"

"Get in." he smiled. "And don't try to chat up the driver, he won't reply to you."

Without a further word, Leonard turned around and walked away, leaving Penny dumbstruck until the driver tapped her on the shoulder and nodded his head towards the car, prompting her to get in. She got into the back seat, sighing at the comfort of the backseat as the driver got into his seat and started the car.

True to Leonard's words, the driver didn't say anything and didn't reply to any inquiry Penny tried. Forty-five minutes later, the car stopped at her parents' house and thankfully, her parents were nowhere to be seen. She thanked the driver, who just nodded, and got out of the car, which drove off immediately and Penny entered her home, seeing her mom in the kitchen.

"There you are." Meryl smiled ant looked at the dress. "Is that what you bought?"

"Yeah." Penny lied, since she couldn't really tell her the real reason. "Got my pants in my bag."

"Not the shirt?"

"I... uh... ripped it." she tried to explain, not really able to tell her mother that she was almost raped.

"That dress really looks amazing on you." Meryl commented. "It's different than what you usually wore in terms of dresses."

"Because it shows less of my tits, right?" Penny chuckled.

"I didn't want to say it that directly, but yeah." Meryl laughed. "You could wear it when you go out."

"Go out where?"

"PENNY!" a shout made her jump a foot high, making her mother laugh, before she was enveloped in a bear hug. "God, you're finally back!"

"Bridget." Penny smiled into her sister's shoulder and winced when Bridget pushed her away and gave her a punch on her own upper arm. "Ow, what was that for?"

"You missed my wedding!" Bridget accused and pulled Penny into her again for another hug. "Mom told me what you went through the last four years."

"Did Bridget become bipolar?" Penny looked at her mom. "First she hugs me, then she punches me and now she hugs me again."

"Very funny." Bridget scoffed. "I also saw the bag of money, so I can expect a conciliatory belated wedding gift, right?"

"Yeah, one that's purchasable with cash." Penny chuckled as Bridget let her go again. "Mom told you about how I got the money too?"

"Yeah, some guy hiring you as arm candy." Bridget nodded.

"Close enough." Penny shrugged. "So, what's his with going out?"

"You and I are going to the Rose club tonight." Bridget stated. "Wear that dress."

"Yes, mam!" Penny giggled, feeling that a night out wouldn't hurt. "You brought a dress too?"

"Of course." Bridget nodded. "Though mine shows a bit more than yours."

"Hey, I like this." Penny argued. "Now people can look at me because me and not just my tits."

"Don't forget our asses, the women in this family always have great asses." Bridget slapped her own ass.

"Speaking of ass, where's your husband?" Penny asked.

"Wait a second, why are you reminded of my husband when you hear ass?" Bridget countered. "Never mind, Josh is back in Kearney, he's at work."

"Mom said he's a restaurant manager?"

"Yeah, a pretty posh place too." Bridget nodded. "He also does a lot of things like company parties and catering. He had to convince the owners to do that and it was so successful that they gave him a big raise. They make more money with catering now than with regular guests and since companies rent the whole place when they do these company picnics or whatever, they make good money from those too."

"When are we going?" Penny asked.

"I'd say we have a nice dinner and go there at around nine." Bridget told her. "The main act usually starts at that time."

"What's the main act?" Penny wondered. "And the last time I was there, there was never something like a main act."

"No idea who's there tonight." Bridget told her. "The club changed hands three years ago and the new owners always bring in some singer or band on the weekends, sometimes famous people but mostly local ones but they're always good."

"That sounds nice." Penny nodded.

"Tell me about it. I visit mom and dad for a weekend every month just so I can go there." Bridget grinned.

"Wow, thanks a lot." Meryl scoffed. "And here I thought it was because you missed us."

"That too." Bridget smiled innocently at her, making Meryl roll her eyes.

"So, I guess you'll want a light dinner then?" Meryl looked at her daughters.

"That'd be great." Bridget nodded. "The last thing we want is be sluggish from too much food."

"Cold cuts it is then." Meryl said and headed to the kitchen to get the butter and cold cuts from the fridge as well as a loaf of already cut bread from the freezer.

"Why do you freeze bread?" Penny wondered.

"When you put it into the microwave and use the second highest thaw setting for seven to eight minutes, it gets soft and warm and tastes like it was fresh." Meryl explained.

"Believe me, they've been doing this for a while now." Bridget added. "Dad loves to put tuna in tomato sauce from a can on it."

"Without butter." an appearing Wyatt said. "The pigs are in the sty again and I gotta shower."

"Yeah, you do." Penny wrinkled her nose at his smell.

"Are you saying I stink?" Wyatt smirked in humor.

"You positively reek." Penny grinned.

"Just for that, I should have dinner with you like I'm now." Wyatt protested.

"Over my dead body." Meryl laughed. "Go shower, you big oaf."

"Yes, dear." Wyatt chuckled and went upstairs.

Penny went upstairs as well, entering her room and taking off the dress to change into some more comfortable clothing for dinner. As she was putting her sweatpants on, the door opened and Bridget entered, sitting down on her bed and just staring.

"What?" Penny asked after a minute of silence.

"I want you to tell me." Bridget stated.

"Tell you what?"

"How this came about." Bridget said and pointed to the bag of cash sitting closed under Penny's desk.

"I thought mom told you." Penny sighed.

"She told me that that asshole Kurt made you a prostitute and that someone hired you who eventually killed him and gave you that."

"Then you know everything." Penny shrugged.

"No, I want to know about him."

"Who, Kurt?" Penny tried to distract her.

"Yeah, right." Bridget scoffed. "No, the guy who killed Kurt. Who was he? How did he kill Kurt? Did Kurt suffer?"

"What's wrong with you?" Penny asked confused.

"If Kurt was still alive, I'd be on my way to Los Angeles right now to put a knife into his heart." Bridget stated, deadly serious. "So, tell me about the guy I have to give a thank you gift whenever I meet him."

"Save your money, you won't ever meet him." Penny chuckled, not wanting to tell Bridget that Leonard was actually in the city right now. "But apparently, he kills people for a living."

"For real?" Bridget gasped.

"Yeah, he gets hired by people who want to see others dead." Penny nodded. "Remember that old guy child rapist that was on trial?"

"The one where the news said he might get either a mild sentence if one at all because of his connections?" Bridget asked.

"Yeah." Penny nodded again. "We spent a week in the honeymoon suite of a hotel, from where he watched the guy. On the first day, he took me to a party where he cased the joint. And almost a week later, the guy was dead."

"So, what was he like?" Bridget asked, accepting Penny's tale. "Was he like Daniel Craig as James Bond, gorgeous while almost oozing danger, or was he like Pierce Brosnan, charming but deadly?"

"Bridget, something changed with you." Penny could only laugh. "His name is John Smith..."

"Sounds fake." Bridget interrupted.

"It is, but it's the one he gave me." Penny nodded, proud of herself at not having given her Leonard's real name by accident. "And the best way I could describe him was average to the point of forgettable."

"Well, that's a let-down." Bridget almost deflated.

"Well, to be honest, I found him kinda cute in a geeky kind of way." Penny giggled. "He wouldn't seem out of place in a university, being the member of a chess club or something like that."

"I guess that helps him." Bridget commented. "If he really does kill people for a living, the last thing you want is people turning their heads to look at you."

After a call from their mother, both went downstairs to the kitchen where Meryl had set the table. Penny sat down and looked around as Bridget and her parents began eating, her dad spreading tuna from the can on the warm bread, the sauce soaking into the slice and making it moist enough to make butter unnecessary.

"Your mom tells me you two are going to that Rose club tonight?" Wyatt spoke up.

"Yeah, Penny never was there and I always go there when I come visit." Bridget nodded. "And I think she needs a night out."

"I heard bad things about that club." Wyatt told them. "Drugs seem to run rampant there."

"I never saw anything when I was there." Bridget shrugged.

"Don't worry dad, I won't start doing drugs now." Penny chuckled.

"Famous last words." Wyatt shook his head. "Just be careful, alright? I just got you back."

"We'll be careful." Penny gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Once dinner was done, Penny jumped in front of the TV and watched a few things, knowing that she really had no idea what she was watching, given that she had barely watched TV at all in the last few years. When the time came, she went upstairs and took a shower before putting on the dress and applying a modest amount of the high-class makeup she still had left from when Leonard had hired her plus an unadorned fake silver ring she had found from her childhood.

"Damn, Penny." Bridget's eyes got wide when she saw her little sister. "You look like you saw a makeup artist."

"Thanks, it was a gift from... you know." Penny did the money sign to indicate who it was from.

"So, he hired you once and already gave you gifts?"

"He gave me a truly stunning dress and the makeup, so I could fit in to the party we went to." Penny nodded.

"So why aren't you wearing that other dress then?"

"It shows a bit too much for what I want tonight." Penny chuckled.

"Wait a second, what is that ring?" Bridget asked, grabbing Penny's left hand to look at it. "Oh, it's fake."

"Yeah, I thought that if the modest dress isn't enough to prevent some guy hitting on me, a wedding ring might." Penny shrugged.

"Normally I'd tell you to find yourself some hot male ass for the night but given what you went through the past years..." Bridget let it trail off.

"Lets not ruin my mood already." Penny rolled her eyes. "You driving?"

"Yeah, lets take dad's old truck."

"Did he install seat belts since I left?" Penny asked.

"Surprisingly, he did." Bridget laughed as she grabbed the keys. "He also added some new shocks and better seats, so it doesn't feel as if you're sitting on a piece of wood."

Penny got into the passenger seat, Bridget starting the truck and driving off. Less than an hour of traffic later, they stopped at the club, walking up to the door and smiling at the bouncers, who nodded and let them in after checking their IDs for age. Inside, Penny was surprised at the rustic look, hardwood walls and floors with a dance floor that looked like a basketball court without the striping. A large panorama window dominated the northern side of the large room, the people behind the bars were well-dressed in button-up shirts with ties and vests and the patrons seemed to be behaving properly, unlike what Penny had expected from hearing the word club.

"Not what you expected, right?" Bridget grinned, seeing Penny's facial expression.

"Not at all." Penny shook her head, looking at the window. "What's up there? VIP area?"

"No, that's where the owner works." Bridget said. "Maybe it has some VIP areas as well but I was never up there and I never saw anyone celebrating up there either."

"Who are they?" Penny pointed at a group of people walking on the stage.

"Tonight's band, I presume." Bridget told her. "Didn't read their name on the posters outside, though."

Then the woman on stage began to sing, a slow but powerful song about regrets and love and Penny began swaying along with the music, most other patrons joining in. Some couples danced slowly while joined together and Penny for once felt nice hearing music in a club since the only time she went to one in the last four years was when a guy who hired her wanted to have a girl with him that he could later brag to his friends about getting her into his bed.

She spent several hours with Bridget having fun and a few drinks when suddenly a body crashed through the large window, shards going everywhere as the music went out with the band stopping to play. Penny watched the trajectory, seeing whoever that was grabbing on to one of the hanging lamps, the thin cable holding it snapping out of its holder at the ceiling and the person falling down on a table which turned over, causing the person to roll and come to a stop right in front of her and Bridget.

"What the..." Penny gasped.

"Hey, Penny." a wincing Leonard tried to smile while a large shard of glass stuck out from his left shoulder. "I'd ask you to introduce us but you should RUN!"

Before Penny could ask why, a loud boom preceded a gust of flame coming out of the window Leonard had just crashed through and the place erupted in pandemonium.

* * *

**Well, this is the end for this chapter. I hope I can write more in the future but it's really tough these days.**

**Review please :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Finished one more for this. Didn't have time for a proofread since I need to go to work in two minutes from now.**

**Still, enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.**

**Disclaimer2: I'm again using the Penny family members that TerribleWaitress created, simply because I'm used to it :D**

* * *

Screaming, the patrons of the club began running. Penny was about to join them when she felt her sister's hand holding her back. A second later, she saw why Bridget did it when the first customers were bowled over by the panicked crowd and luckily, those unfortunate souls managed to get back up and keep running when the first gun shots rang out.

Bullets were screaming past them, and both Penny and Bridget tried to make themselves as small as possible, hearing the impacts of the projectiles in the walls around them. Penny looked over at Leonard who was still behind the thick table he had turned over when he crashed onto it, now holding a gun of his own.

She winced when she saw him rip the shard out of his shoulder, a long thin piece of it covered in blood. He looked past the table and pulled the trigger three times, causing three of the people shooting at them to drop dead, a bullet in each of their heads. That show of marksmanship made the goons take cover as well, the rate of fire dropping as they sought to protect themselves from the man who had crashed through the window before an explosion.

Flames were still licking out of the office area and started to spread through the building. Penny looked at Bridget who could only shake her head, seeing no avenue of exit anymore, now that the rest of the patrons were gone and the goons were freely shooting into their direction to get at Leonard.

"Fire in the hole!" she heard someone shout before and object began flying towards them.

"Oh fuck!" she cursed under her breath.

Penny knew from her time in high school that when the body gets flooded with adrenaline in the fight or flight response, time appears to slow down and right now, she began feeling it. She looked and saw the flight path of the grenade with excruciating slowness, knowing where it would land and that when it exploded, her young life and that of her sister were most likely at an end.

Knowing that Bridget had a husband to go home to, Penny prepared herself mentally to shield Bridget from the blast, so she would survive when suddenly, a thick table slid in front of them just in time for the grenade to bounce off of it and land several feet away while Leonard was jumping behind another table, trying to shield himself as it went off.

The blast deafened her momentarily, a loud ringing overpowering everything else. She saw Leonard get hit by a piece of shrapnel, his body contorting in pain and his mouth opening in a scream she couldn't hear as the blood squirted out of his hip. She saw him grab a bottle she knew out of one of his pockets, spraying the contents on the wound and using a burning piece of wood to ignite it, creating the flash she knew from the alley. He then grabbed a syringe and rammed it into his hip close to the wound, pressing the plunger down until it was empty.

Ten seconds later, Leonard rolled onto his belly and grabbed his gun again, lifting his head over the rim of the table he was hiding behind and let loose a volley of seven shots. To her shock and astonishment, seven more goons fell dead, all with bullets in their heads or chests. She had never seen something so brutal yet elegant, no shot or movement wasted. As her hearing began to return, another burst of automatic fire hit the area, impacting their barricades and splintering the hard wood, making her scream in fear.

Leonard made eye contact with her and inclined his head towards the exit, then jumped up and ran into the developing smoke from the fire, away from her and Bridget. More shots rang out, their impacts going away from them and Penny understood the nodding he had done.

"We have to get out of here!" she shouted at Bridget to be heard over the gunfire.

"Are you insane?!" Bridget shouted back. "We'll never make it!"

"He's drawing their fire away from us, go!" Penny shouted and jumped up.

"For crying out loud!" Bridget cursed and got up as well, running after her sister towards the exit and into the cool night air until they had reached their truck.

"Open it!" Penny yelled.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Bridget cursed again, fumbling the keys with shaking hands, finally managing to open the driver's side door and jumping in so she could lift the pin of the passenger door.

"We need to get away from here before the cops arrive." Penny told Bridget who nodded and started the car, driving it a few hundred yards.

"Stop!" Penny shouted, making Bridget slam on the breaks.

"What now?" Bridget asked.

"I need to see if he's alright." Penny told her.

"Are you insane?" Bridget hissed. "Under no circumstances are we going back there."

"Bridge, I need to know." Penny pleaded.

"Why?" Bridget groaned. "Weren't you there? The guy killed like a dozen people with as many shots. Who is he to you?"

"He..." Penny wanted to tell her but in that moment, a movement caught in the periphery of her eye. "Look!"

They both looked to Penny's right, seeing a lone figure stumble through the night, one hand on the hip. Penny knew instinctively that it was Leonard, his short stature and his gait known to her. Penny fumbled with the door opener until it finally clicked and the door opened.

"Penny, why are you so determined to help him?" Bridget held her on the arm. "Who is he to you?"

"He's the guy who saved me from Kurt." Penny said teary and jumped out of the vehicle.

"Shit!" Bridget cursed again when the figure fell down and lay still and also jumped out of the truck.

"Leonard!" Penny shouted and ran to the prone figure.

"I thought his name was John?" Bridget asked as she caught up to Penny.

"His real name is Leonard." Penny sniffed and knelt down, trying to figure out what to do.

"He's alive." Bridget stated, having felt his pulse. "Help me get him into the truck."

"Why are you helping so suddenly?" Penny asked her.

"Because I still need to buy him a beer." Bridget stated and pulled him up. "We need to get him to a hospital."

"No hospital." Leonard mumbled. "They'll call the police and that would complicated things too much."

"Do you have a doctor to call on?" Penny asked as they reached the truck, hoisting him onto the passenger seat while Penny climbed into the backseat.

"Normally yes, but the one in this city died two weeks ago and there's no replacement yet." Leonard whispered, weak from his ordeal. "Get me to a place with hot water and strong alcohol."

"Shit!" Bridget cursed again when Leonard closed his eyes and seemed to nod off. "Lets take him home."

"What? Home?" Penny gasped. "What about mom and dad?"

"It's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission." Bridget shrugged. "And we have hot water and believe me, mom and dad have strong alcohol."

"Okay." Penny nodded as Bridget started driving, sticking to some side streets as the blue flashing lights of the police and fire department vehicles went the opposite way on the main road.

Whenever Bridget could, she drove above the speed limit, allowing them to reach their parents' farm in thirty minutes. Leonard was breathing steadily and Penny was sure he was asleep when he suddenly opened his eyes and looked at the house they brought him to.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Home." Penny told him and pushed herself out of the backseat after Bridget had exited the car.

"Come on, you." Bridget said and grabbed Leonard's arm, lifting him up and steadying him alone until Penny reached them and put his other arm over her shoulder, eliciting a pained groan from him.

"Is the pain bad?" she asked.

"Yes, especially in my left hip." Leonard confirmed.

"Shit!" Penny cursed when she saw fresh blood coming out of the wound he had, her action of pulling his arm up and over her shoulder having ripped the protective cover he had created over the wound open again.

Bridget fumbled her keys out of her purse and unlocked the door, pulling Leonard inside who groaned in pain from being pulled on one side and held in the other. More blood came from his shoulder wound where the glass shard had been stuck in, running down his outfit and starting to drip on the floor.

"Where do we put him?" Penny wondered.

"Preferably a comfortable surface where I can be propped up in a half-sitting position." Leonard told them.

"Like a hospital bed?" Bridget asked pointedly.

"A bunch of cushions under my back and head will result in the same." Leonard let out a cough.

"Shit, lets get him up to my room." Penny says.

"Try to be quieter." Bridget hissed when they were banging against the wall and the banister on their way up and to Penny's room.

"Here we are." Penny said shyly, not even knowing why.

"You know, when I said earlier tonight that you could have found yourself a piece of male ass for the night, I didn't mean it like this." Bridget joked as they put Leonard into her bed after Penny had put a spare blanket over it.

"I hope this isn't some bad joke about how the only guy I can get into bed is one who can't escape." Penny scoffed as they both put a bunch of pillows under his back and neck so he was propped up before they manhandled the body glove off of his upper body. "So, what do we need?"

"I have most of the tools on me." Leonard winced and opened a zipper on his, what Penny knew to be a body glove, pulling out a thin pouch and handing it to Penny.

"Jesus." Penny said as she took out a scalpel, a pair of small forceps and some surgical needles along with thread in a separate plastic covering.

"What the hell is going on here?" the voice of Meryl interrupted them, both girls seeing her and Wyatt standing at the door of Penny's room.

"Mom, dad." Penny looked apologetic at her parents. "I'd love to say that this isn't what it looks like, but it is."

"Can someone explain what I'm looking at?" Wyatt asked. "Because I see a man bleeding on my daughter's bed."

"Remember the guy I told you about, that saved me from Kurt?" Penny looked at them. "Meet the man who saved me from Kurt."

"Oh crap, what happened to him?" Meryl asked.

"Job gone wrong." Leonard winced. "Could we please get on with his before I pass out from blood loss?"

"What do we need?" Wyatt asked, his concern about the man somewhat pushed aside by gratefulness.

"You need to boil the tools." Leonard pointed to the scalpel and forceps.

"Wyatt, go to the kitchen and boil some water." Meryl ordered. "What else?"

"A disinfectant to clean the wound." Leonard continued.

"He mentioned strong booze." Bridget said.

"I'll get the iodine." Meryl sighed and got up to run into the master bathroom.

"Get some strong alcohol anyway." Leonard told Bridget who nodded and also left the room.

"What happened?" Penny asked quietly.

"I have no idea." Leonard winced once more as a fresh wave of pain went through him. "The bomb was a surprise."

"I bet." Penny chuckled.

"You look good." Leonard said seriously. "That dress fits you."

"You looked better. But I think the dress looked better without the blood stains." she smiled at him. "And I think you need a shower."

"Look who's talking." Leonard winked.

"Are you saying I stink?" Penny gasped in humor.

"You positively reek." Leonard replied and Penny was surprised to hear the very same words directed at her that she said to her dad the day before. "Like a barbecue gone wrong."

"Okay, I've boiled everything like you said." a returning Wyatt proclaimed, stopping the banter, carrying a pot with steaming water where the scalpel and forceps were placed in.

"I got the iodine and some gauze." Meryl said as she came into the room again.

"I got the booze." Bridget proclaimed when she returned with a bottle of strong vodka.

"What for?" Meryl asked.

"It's for you guys." Leonard said. "To calm your nerves."

"Good idea." Bridget nodded and took a swig.

"Wrap some gauze around a stick or something and put iodine on it." Leonard said, Penny doing what he told her. "Now dab the wound, to disinfect it then use water to clean the edges."

"Sorry." Penny winced when Leonard twitched in suppressed pain as Penny cleaned the blood from around the wound.

"Okay, what now?" Bridget wanted to know.

"Now, take the scalpel and make an incision through the wound, about an inch long." Leonard told them.

"Here you go." Wyatt handed her the scalpel.

"What, me?" Penny shrieked.

"Give it to me." Meryl sighed and sat down beside Leonard, taking a deep breath and a swig of vodka. "Okay, about an inch."

"Ugh." Bridget made a gagging sound as Meryl cut Leonard's wound open, the skin parting and fresh blood squirting out of it. "How can you take that without screaming?"

"Me and pain have a long and close relationship." Leonard groaned in pain.

"What now?" Meryl asked, putting the scalpel away.

"Here comes the fun part." Leonard tried levity. "Carefully, and I do mean carefully, pull the sliver out. You, sir, heat one of the needles over an open flame. "

"Right." Wyatt nodded, getting a lighter as Penny handed the small forceps to her mom.

"God, the last time I tried this was with a board game with a guy whose nose lit up when I made a mistake." Meryl winced herself.

"Then please do me a favor and try not to make my nose light up." Leonard joked to lift the mood.

"Got it." Meryl couldn't help but chuckle as she put the forceps into the wound.

"Be careful, mom." Penny implored.

"Well, and here I thought I would simply ram it in." Meryl scoffed.

"Ahem." Leonard looked at both.

"Sorry." Penny apologized as Meryl put the forceps in again

"Okay, I think I got it. Yeah, I got it." Meryl nodded to herself as she felt the resistance of a piece of metal but when she pulled, the metal slipped out of the forceps which came back out empty, eliciting another groan of pain from Leonard. "I haven't got it."

"Careful, mom." Bridget said.

"Okay, now that you know how not to do it, why not try the other way?" Leonard smiled weakly.

"Okay, I got it again." Meryl said, having grabbed the piece of metal with the forceps and this time, she held them tight together as to not lose them again.

"Hrgn!" Leonard groaned loudly, his body again lifting in what looked to Penny tremendous pain as Meryl slowly pulled on the metal until it was completely out of his body.

"Well done, honey." Wyatt congratulated her, holding a small bowl for her to put the tool and sliver in.

"Now hand me the needle and thread." Leonard told them.

"I take you sowed yourself up before." Wyatt said as he handed Leonard the tools.

"At least this time I have a needle." Leonard nodded and set to work, pressing the needle into his skin and closing the wound.

"How would you close a wound without a needle?" Meryl asked.

"Once I used a stapler." Leonard shrugged with one shoulder, given that the other was still bleeding. "I also used glue more than once to prevent bleeding out until I got to a proper doctor to patch me up."

"Jeez." Wyatt breathed.

"The second needle please." Leonard said after finishing with the hip wound.

"You can do that with one hand?" Penny asked.

"Yes." Leonard nodded. "But I need a mirror, preferably one larger than what you might carry in your purse.

"I get one." Bridget said and went to the bathroom, coming back out with a large mirror and holding it up for him as Leonard set to work, sowing the second wound close, deftly using his free fingers to hold the skin in place when he pierced it with the needle.

"What exactly happened to you?" Meryl asked, looking over the multitude of scars and what looked like old bullet holes on Leonard's body.

"Are you talking about tonight or in general?" he asked, noticing her stare.

"Well... both." Meryl shrugged.

"Everybody has a reason for what they do." Leonard replied cryptically. "But tonight was something I didn't expect."

"Did you kill the owner of the Rose club?" Bridget asked.

"That was my job, yes." Leonard nodded. "Though I didn't have to, he was already dead when I reached his office and the bomb was sitting on his desk, with ten seconds to go. Hence my... alternate exit from the room."

"He crashed through the window." Penny elaborated to her parents.

"Which means, either one of my... uh... colleagues accepted the job after I did or it was someone completely unrelated since bombings isn't really a style of anyone I know in my profession."

"Penny told us you kill people for a living?" Wyatt wanted confirmation.

"Yes, I do." Leonard nodded and turned to Penny. "And just how much did you tell them about me?"

"I didn't tell them!" she defended herself.

"She didn't need to, her saying you killed Kurt and then telling me that you'd kill me before I get a shot off from my shotgun told us enough." Wyatt smiled.

"I do hope I don't have to prove that." Leonard said.

"Nah, you saved my little girl, that trumps whatever you do."

"Why did you have to kill the owner anyway?" Bridget asked.

"He had been using the club to distribute drugs and launder money for years now..."

"Ha!" Wyatt interrupted. "I knew it."

"But recently, he has expanded into human trafficking of girls as young as twelve, immigrant and domestic, snapping them off the streets, when they're homeless and selling them into prostitution around the country and even other parts of the world." Leonard continued. "Then his men made the mistake of grabbing the thirteen year old granddaughter of a retired associate of mine from her school vacation in France. Needless to say, he wanted revenge."

"What happened to the girl?" Bridget asked, unsure if she wanted to know the answer.

"Others like me have rescued her and others girls when they took out the European branches of the ring." Leonard told her. "Luckily they got to her before she was fully... uh... groomed, so she hadn't been violated sexually yet."

"And by taken out you mean..." Bridget inquired.

"Lets just say that there are quite a few less people in the world than there were a month ago." Leonard said clearly enough. "The people in my profession are very thorough, especially when it comes to helping one of our own. I expect more bodies to drop in the next few weeks. In this case, we have no qualms about how high it goes. We'd even kill the leader of a country if he or she was involved."

"How exactly does that work?" Penny asked. "I mean, I doubt there's a message board on the internet where people like me could place a hit on someone like Kurt for example."

"Actually, there's a message board on the internet, though it's disguised on the dark net, and not accessible through regular means." Leonard explained.

"Then how do people that hire you get there?"

"We have web sniffers that do nothing but scour the net for people with grievances and after a background check to see if they're who they claim to be, they get approached. If they agree to place a contract, they give the information which are then put on our message board to accept." Leonard continued. "A target or more than one is set, the amount of money it pays and if the contract is open or closed."

"What does that mean?" Bridget wanted to know.

"A closed contract means that if I take it, nobody else can. An open one means, it's open season on the target and the money goes to the one who takes it out." Leonard told her. "My contract was closed, hence my... surprise at finding my target dead and a bomb on his desk."

"And that will lead to what?"

"If it was one of the people in my profession, then there will be consequences." Leonard said. "Nothing lethal, just some sanctions." Leonard shrugged.

"I think we should let you sleep." Meryl told everyone. "You had a rough night and I'm sure you could use the rest."

"Where do I sleep?" Leonard asked.

"I think you should stay in the bed." Penny stated.

"Sis, I was joking when I said land yourself some hot male ass." Bridget smirked.

"Very funny." Penny rolled her eyes. "He's already in it, he's hurt and it already smells like blood and disinfectant in here."

"Makes sense." Meryl nodded. "Penny can sleep in Scott's room."

"I could use a shower." Leonard said, slowly getting up. "Do you have some plastic foil and tape?"

"Of course." Meryl nodded and headed downstairs to get both.

"Us too." Penny pointed to herself and Bridget. "We smell like smoke from the fire."

"I also need a laptop." Leonard stated. "Mine is still in my hotel room."

"I can lend you one." a returning Meryl said, handing Leonard the foil and tape. "But I don't know if it has everything on it that someone like you needs."

"No worries." Leonard told her an fished a flash drive out of one of his pockets. "Everything I need is on here."

Penny showed Leonard the bathroom, him nodding and peeling off the pants part of his body glove, showing few scars on his legs and a very tight pair of underwear, Penny already understanding why, given what he wore above it. Leonard took the foil and tape and began ripping some off, clearly having trouble until Penny took the tape and fixed the foil over his wounds to keep it dry.

Without any warning, Leonard dropped his underwear, Penny quickly turning around, blushing, and stepped into the tub, closing the curtain and opening the faucet. He used the soap available and rinsed himself off, getting the stink of smoke and blood off of him as best he could. For almost a minute, Penny was transfixed in place, not quite sure how to process that the man had just gotten naked without a worry and gotten into the tub.

For a moment, she thought about getting naked and stepping into the tub as well but she quelled that thought, heading out to her brother's empty room after grabbing her sleepwear. As she stood under the spray of her brother's shower, she wondered why she had that thought of getting into the shower with him. She barely knew him, he did things that were illegal and her head was swimming with the knowledge of what he told them, making her aware of just how much she didn't know about the goings on.

But she also couldn't deny that she found him cute. Even though he was on the shorter end in terms of height, his body was tight in a way not even athletes' were. Every stance of him exuded danger, the knowledge that if someone were to attack him, that someone would find himself dead or very injured as a result and it would take Leonard barely an afterthought.

She thought about the fight in the alley she had witnessed. In retrospect, she realized that Leonard had incapacitated the guys in a manner that cost him the least amount of energy. When the big guy had attacked him, Leonard had evaded most attacks and then broke the guy's elbow, taking him out. The next one had dropped after a punch into the throat and to top it off, he broke or at least twisted the ankles of both. For some reason, she wanted to learn to do this as well.

After drying off, she put on her sleepwear, loose pajama bottoms and an old top with its stomach area cut out, which she hadn't worn since she was thirteen. She looked at herself in the mirror and realized that she should have bought new pajamas since having the underside of her breasts showing and her nipples barely covered by the top wasn't something she was going for, even to sleep.

She decided to have a glass of water before going to bed and headed downstairs, stopping short when she reached the kitchen, finding Leonard standing at the counter, wearing only shorts, and rubbing something on his freshly sown wounds.

"Hey." she got his attention, unsure if she should approach for a glass. "Just wanted to get some water. What are you doing?"

"Rubbing honey on the wounds." he said, looking at her and doing a slight double-take when he took in her outfit, one eyebrow going up in appreciation. "That's a rare choice for sleepwear."

"Yeah, I left most of my stuff in Los Angeles." she shrugged. "And for reasons you know, I didn't have the chance yet to buy new clothes."

"Didn't you say you wanted some water?" Leonard asked, feeling the urge to look at her.

"Yeah, you're standing in front of the cupboard with the glasses." she smiled.

"Sorry." he nodded and took a step aside so she could approach, coughing when she stretched to grab it, showing him more than he expected.

"Do you have everything?" an appearing Meryl asked, looking at her daughter, who was unknowingly flashing their guest, with a smile.

"You wouldn't have a hot patch by any chance, would you?" Leonard asked.

"Sure I do." Meryl nodded and left the kitchen again, to reappear a few seconds later with a package.

"Thanks." Leonard nodded and took it out, taking a knife as well and starting to scrape at it.

"What are you doing?" Penny asked, the glass she was holding momentarily forgotten.

"Heat and moisture accelerate the healing process. But this particular type of hot patch creates the heat by releasing a powder that reacts with the moisture on your skin. The last thing I want is this powder in the wound because it would make me feel as if I was on fire." Leonard explained and began spreading a gel on the patch when he was done scraping.

"What's that?" Penny asked.

"A zinc oxide paste." he told them. "Like honey, it's anti-inflammatory and it lowers the scarring."

"The stuff you know." Penny chuckled and finally poured some water into her glass.

"Actually, your mom told me about this." Leonard corrected.

"Those are household remedies." Meryl smiled.

"Well, thank you for your hospitality." Leonard said when he was done. "Tomorrow, when I get up, I will leave again."

"Nonsense." Meryl shook her head. "You can stay for as long as you need."

"Thanks, but until I know the reason for what happened tonight, I can't risk putting you all in possible danger." Leonard stated and left them alone.

"What?" Penny looked at her mom, who just grinned at her.

"You like him." Meryl said.

"Well, he saved my life, of course I'm grateful." Penny stammered.

"Not what I meant." Meryl winked. "Good night."

"Ugh." Penny huffed and downed her glass before going back up the stairs and entering her room.

"Something else on your mind?" Leonard asked.

"Oh, forgot that I slept in my brother's room tonight." she chuckled and heard the music coming from her old radio. "What's that music? The voice of the guy is amazing."

"It's a Finnish band called Poets of the Fall." Leonard replied as he put away the laptop he had been working on. "Their music soothes me, especially on days like this."

"Wow, I need to get myself some of those songs." Penny nodded, listening for a bit to the lyrics, which were deep and profound. "Any recommendations?"

"It's faster to show you the songs of theirs that aren't good." Leonard said and held out a piece of paper which she took.

"There's nothing on here." Penny pointed out.

"Exactly." Leonard smiled.

"Well..." Penny began, unsure if she should say anything else. "Good night."

"Good night." Leonard said and shut off the light as Penny walked towards the door. "Oh, and Penny?"

"Yes?" she turned around, seeing only his silhouette in the dim moonlight.

"You truly are a beautiful woman." he said serious. "Don't let anything that happened in your life take that away from you."

"Uh... thanks." she stammered and left the room, not knowing how to reply to that.

After getting into her brother's bed, she let the day run through her head, from being saved by him to getting into that club only to have her life again saved by him when he pushed that table in front of them. Her thoughts went to earlier, when he got naked in front of her and his appreciative look at her body, both in the alley and in the kitchen, which was so much different than either Kurt or any of the guys she had to sleep with during the last years.

Huffing, she turned and tried to get some sleep.

* * *

**So, you may have noticed that I named a certain band. Yes, all their songs are great and I'd ask everyone to listen to their songs, especially the song "The Sweet Escape" in their Alexander Theatre version. The guy has the voice of an angel and it's almost a crime against nature that they're not more well known.**

**Other than that, review please :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**One perk of having the second shift is that it starts in the early afternoon. Which means, I have the time in the morning to write, once my other chores are done.**

**NewCastle81: A "higher rating" as you put it can be done with good reviews. I like them a bit longer, not just a "good story" or similar short comments that don't really give any real feedback as to what I could do better or different.**

**Enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.**

**Disclaimer2: I'm again using the Penny family members that TerribleWaitress created, simply because I'm used to it :D**

* * *

"Good morning." Meryl greeted their guest when Leonard stepped into the kitchen, wearing her daughter's robe and holding his hip where she had pulled the metal out of him. "Have you slept at all?"

"No." Leonard shook his head. "Spent the last two hours looking for indications if anyone was after me in particular, which would put your family at risk."

"And?" Meryl asked in apprehension.

"No signs of it so far." Leonard sighed, looking around. "You got any tea?"

"Sure, plenty." Meryl nodded, taking a large box out of one of the cabinets, filled with a large assortment of tea bags. "Cups are in the cabinet behind you."

"Thanks." Leonard said sincerely and took a cup before filling the water heater with water and starting it.

"Do I have to worry about someone coming here due to you using my laptop for whatever it is you needed it?" Meryl wanted to know.

"No, I used this." he showed her the flash drive again he had shown her before before filling the now hot water into the cup. "It contains its own operating system which supersedes the one on your laptop. No trace is left on your laptop or your internet connection."

"Are you still planning to leave now?" Meryl asked as Leonard sipped his tea.

"Yes, I still should leave." he nodded. "I have already taken up too much of your hospitality."

"Nonsense." Meryl waved him off. "I told you, you can stay as long as you need. Quite frankly, I saw you coming in here, you look like you can barely move, much less travel. And given the fact that my daughters brought you here instead of to a hospital tells me that you can't go to a doctor now to have your wound been taken a look at... what's so funny?" Meryl asked when she saw Leonard smiling.

"Now I know where your daughter gets her perception skill from." Leonard smiled.

"I think you also have realized that Penny has taken to you, quite a lot." Meryl stated.

"I did." Leonard nodded. "Another reason for me to leave."

"Why?"

"Because the last thing that you would want as a mother is your daughter falling for someone like me." Leonard sighed.

"Why?" Meryl wondered. "You're a decent guy."

"Am I?" Leonard looked at her. "I kill people for a living. Not really a profession you could brag to your relatives about."

"Yeah, I can see my sister's reaction." Meryl chuckled. "'What does your son in law do for a living?' 'Oh, he is an assassin.'."

"The fact remains that I'm not a nice man." Leonard said. "It doesn't matter that I only kill people who deserve it."

"But isn't that something that makes you decent?" Meryl asked.

"No, because what if that deserving man is a father as well?" Leonard retorted. "What if someone who makes his living by cheating others out of their money has a family himself? People like me still kill him because despite him being a father, he makes his living by ruining other people's lives. The leader of a drug cartel often has a wife and children."

"Huh, I never thought about that." Meryl mused. "Did you really kill the leader of a drug cartel?"

"Yes." Leonard nodded. "One of my... lets just say, more regrettable jobs."

"Why?" Meryl wondered. "Isn't taking out a drug lord a good thing?"

"It is, if you do it properly." Leonard said. "But I was young, full of myself after a string of successful jobs and I didn't really appreciate how a cartel is structured. So when I took out the leader and his top capo, who would have taken over, it caused a civil war within the cartel, which wiped it out in the eight months that followed but also cost the lives of over three thousand civilians who got caught in the crossfires and bombings."

"That's horrible." Meryl gasped.

"Exactly." Leonard nodded. "From that day forward, I became a lot more cautious and strategic. Learn about how taking out my target would impact the environment if it's a part of an organized crime organization."

"Did you?" Meryl asked. "I mean, take out another organization."

"Yes." Leonard nodded again. "Last year, I took out another cartel in Mexico by poisoning the leader and all his lieutenants. The resulting chaos ended the cartel because nobody was there to take over."

"What about the people below the capos?"

"They don't have an overview about the whole cartel, so they can't take over. And a few choice documents sent to local police and the federales took care of their cells." Leonard explained.

"Interesting." she commented, impressed by this inauspicious man.

"You know, it's kind of refreshing to have someone to talk about this that is not part of what I do." Leonard stated and downed the rest of his tea. "I should go now before Penny wakes up."

"She will be crushed." Meryl stated. "My daughter had taken quite a lot to you and I can see that you also like her."

"Yes, I do." Leonard nodded, standing up. "She's a beautiful woman, she's smarter than she looks and I feel myself drawn to her, so the last thing I should do is stay."

"Why?" Meryl wanted to know. "Why would you deny yourself the chance?"

"Because I get the feeling that she wants to learn how to do what I do." Leonard sighed. "And nobody should want to become an assassin. Nobody should want to kill people for a living. I don't want to destroy her innocence."

"Truthfully, I think a lot of her innocence was already destroyed during the last four years." Meryl said quietly. "Still, you're right, I don't know how I would deal if she became a hired killer."

"Glad you see it my way." Leonard smiled.

"But in the end, it's her decision." Meryl added. "Even if I don't like it, she'll always be my little girl. Even if she makes her living by being an extrajudicial executioner of bad people."

"By the way, I have something for you." Leonard said and produced a round disk out of one of the robe pockets, handing it to her.

"What is it?" Meryl asked, looking at the intricate design on the two-inch diameter disc.

"It's a protective marker." he explained. "I'll send you some more later. You can nail them above your doors and every window and your front and back gates."

"And what to they do?"

"Every organized crime group knows these markers." Leonard told her. "They know what they represent and them on your house tells them that you and your family are protected by someone like me. And nobody will dare to put a hand on you or anyone of your family."

"That's neat." Meryl was impressed.

"You may become aware in the future of some shady looking people watching you." Leonard continued. "Those will be members of organized crime groups that are actually watching over you."

"Why would they do that?"

"Because while small time criminals don't know about these markers or what they represent, what the organizations want to prevent is someone like me coming into town because someone under our protection was hurt or killed." Leonard said. "Who do you think we would go to first?"

"That makes sense." Meryl chuckled. "Still, do you think we need it?"

"No, it's just a precaution." Leonard shook his head. "Essentially, this is more of an insurance, because over time, word will filter down to the small time criminals that your house and your family are completely off limits."

"Well, thanks, I guess." Meryl said.

"Do you, by any chance, have some clothes that I can borrow?" Leonard asked. "I can't very well go back to my hotel wearing my body glove, especially given that is has a few bloody holes in it and reeks of smoke."

"The owner doesn't like it when their guests return like that, I guess?" Meryl chuckled. "Sure, I can give you some of Scott's old clothes."

"The hotel is geared towards people like me." Leonard explained. "While the people working there know about what I do and have facilities for me to use to repair my equipment, any regular guest present would maybe look at me with alarm if I enter wearing bloody clothes."

As all that was transpiring, Penny slept a good sleep, her dreams whirling with images of her and their current house guest. Her mind processed what happened before, her near-death experience in the club, the following medical procedure in her own bed and the conversation she had with him before.

When she woke up, she had daylight hitting her face. She looked at her watch and saw the time being shortly after eight and tiredly, she got up and used the en-suite bathroom to relieve herself. With a smile, she exited the room and knocked on the door of her own, opening it quietly when she received to answer and saw the room empty, her bed made and her robe folded on it.

As she rounded the bed, she noticed a glint coming from under her bed. Bending down, she found one of the gold coins Leonard had used in the clothing store and she mused that it must have fallen out of one of his pockets when they had put him into her bed. She took the robe and held it to her face, smelling his lingeirng scent but then the implication hit her. She ran out of the room and downstairs, finding her mother in the kitchen.

"Where's Leonard?" she asked.

"He left two hours ago." Meryl told her.

"Oh."she said sadly.

"We had a talk before that, he explained to me why he needed to leave." Meryl said. "Honey, it's for the best."

"Isn't that for me to decide?" Penny raised her voice, feeling frustration at a possible chance wasted.

"Not just you, he also has a word in it, don't you think?" Meryl retorted, completely dismembering Penny's future arguments. "Who are you to decide for him?"

"Still, if he really wants to leave, he should tell me in person!" Penny shouted as she ran upstairs to get dressed.

"You don't even know where he went." Meryl tried to stop her when Penny came back down, barely wearing anything.

"Then I'll look around!" she huffed and grabbed the keys to the truck.

* * *

Penny sighed when she parked the truck on the parking lot of the fourth hotel she was trying. She had no idea if she had already been in the correct one, the people behind the reception desks never reacting to either the coin she had found or the marker that Leonard had given her mom. She wasn't sure anymore if she should even continue to try to find him, his actions clearly saying that he didn't want to stick around but his comment on her beauty and from what her mom had told her about what he said making her go on, if only to find some closure.

She entered the hotel, noticing the looks of some of the people sitting in the rotunda and of the man behind the reception. She felt out of place, seeing lots of people in suits and women in elegant dresses, a sharp contrast to her cutoff jeans and tank top and she felt her nipples harden in the air-conditioned coolness, cursing herself for not having put on a bra. Steeling her nerves, she approached the reception desk, where the man watched her like a hawk, having noticed that she had come in without any luggage.

"Can I help you, miss?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm looking for someone and he might be a guest in your hotel." she told him. "His name is Leonard."

"Leonard...?" he looked at her.

"I don't know his last name." she sighed. "He... uh... may have booked a room under another name, he is shorter than me, curly hair..."

"I'm sorry, miss." the man interrupted her. "We don't give out information about our guests."

"Um, I'm..." Penny stammered and produced the coin and marker, holding them in one hand each, the man looking at them and giving a slight nod before picking up the receiver of a very old looking phone, completely with dial plate.

"Sir, there's someone here to see you." he spoke into the receiver. "A woman named..."

"Penny." she said.

"Penny." the man repeated. "I see... I understand... very good, sir."

"Is he here?" she asked.

"Room six-twelve." he told her, pointing to her right.

"Thanks." Penny smiled happily and walked briskly to the elevator, hitting the button for the sixth floor.

As the elevator moved up, the anticipation turned into apprehension. What exactly was she doing here? She doubted she could make him stay. Her idea of him training her she she could do what he did came to mind but if his actions were an indicator, he would certainly refuse. Just him leaving in the dead of night was a sign enough.

Did she misread him? His comments on her appearance, his appreciative looks had made her think that there may be something between them than just lust. Did she only feel lust for him or was there more? She saw him naked and while he had some cuteness going for him, for some reason his assortment of scars made him outright hot. She could only imagine the stories he might have to tell. Every scar may be a record of a hit, a memorial to every mistake he made.

"Alright, here we go." she whispered to herself but before she could knock, the door opened and a strong hand grabbed her left wrist, pulling her forcefully into the room, almost making her stumble. "Jesus!"

"What the hell are you doing here?" Leonard asked, clad only in shorts and the two sowed-up wounds in full display while a supply of fresh gauze and dressing material telling her the reason for his appearance.

"You left without saying goodbye." she managed to get out, looking around the spacious room and hearing the same music she had heard him listening to the night before.

"That's it?" he looked at her with suspicion. "So if I tell you goodbye now, you will leave?"

"Um..."

"I see." he sighed and began to dress his wounds, having some trouble with it.

"Let me help." she said and took the dressing material, letting him press the gauze on the wound before she wrapped the dressing around his body.

"Thanks." he nodded gratefully. "I'll head over to Lincoln soon to see one of our doctors so she can sow me up properly."

"You're leaving?" she asked.

"Of course, my job here is done." Leonard nodded. "Why?"

"Because..." she stammered. "I want to stay with you. I want to learn what you do."

"No." he shook his head, simple as that.

"Why not?" she became exasperated at his flat refusal without explanation.

"Because this is not a profession you should want to learn, this is a profession you get thrown into." he told her. "The only people who want to do this are psychopaths and they are the ones that shouldn't learn what I do."

"But you only kill bad people, that's a good thing." she argued. "And you kill them with the least amount of pain, as I recall."

"Do you think I started that way?" she shot back. "I did things in my past that would make you recoil because I felt invincible."

"But you could teach me how to do it right." she said.

"Penny, you do not want to be a killer." he sighed. "Every time I kill someone, I leave some part of me behind."

"But you make the world a better place." she tried again.

"Penny, I can't!" he shouted.

"Why not?" she shouted back, his points valid but to her they seemed an excuse.

"Because..." he stammered but when Penny expected another valid point, she was shocked and surprised when she felt his lips on hers but when she wrapped her arms around his neck and returned the kiss, he ended it, taking a step back. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that."

"Oh, shut up." she chuckled and kissed him again.

This time, his arms wrapped around her waist and he kissed her with the same fervor that she kissed him with. Their tongues intertwined almost violently, both acting like the other was a bottle of oxygen they found while stuck under water. Suddenly, his hands were on her ass and she was hoisted into the air, her legs going around his waist almost like they were meant to and for a split-second, she worried that the strain of her weight would rip open his wound again.

He turned them around and she found herself falling backwards on the bed, his body on top of hers. His left hand began roaming, up and down her leg, her hip and the side of the body to end up on her face before moving south again. Her heart rate went up even higher when it came to rest on her breast, running his thumb over the erect nipple before moving down once more, the other hand doing the same on the other side of her body.

She felt her top lifted until her breasts popped free while his mouth went to her neck, kissing and sucking on it. She felt like her heart was about to burst from her chest, so different than it had with any other man she had been with, before or after becoming a prostitute. She squealed when his mouth latched onto her nipple but suddenly, he let go and quickly got up, standing in front of the bed, the bulge visible in his shorts telling her enough about what he wanted but stopped himself from doing.

"No, we can't do this." he said.

"Why not?" she asked and sat up, taking off her top properly and presenting her breasts to him in her full glory and trying to grab him. "This feels just right."

"It does, and that's why we can't do it." he sighed.

"Okay, I don't understand." she crossed her legs and arms. "Explain."

"If we do it, it will be good." he said. "And then I'd want to stay. Or keep you around."

"Is that such a bad idea?" she smiled. "I'm trying to stay around you."

"Again, you shouldn't want to." he said with some reluctance in his voice when her phone beeped with an incoming message. "It's from your mom."

"What?" she looked where he pointed, her phone on the bed where it must have slipped out her pants pocket, and she took it to read the message. "Shit!"

"What?" he asked, surprised by her forceful curse.

"She says that there's a dozen police officers at our house, looking for you."

"Can she take a picture of one of the policemen?" he asked. "Especially his badge."

"Sure." Penny nodded and typed, then both had to wait three minutes before a reply came in form of several pictures, clearly taken in a way that had the phone inconspicuously held and not directly pointed at some of the men.

"Shit!" Leonard cursed. "Those aren't cops."

"Are you sure?" Penny wondered, looking at the picture. "Looks right to me."

"Look closely at the badge." he said and took off his shirt and pants to suit up like he had for his mission in Los Angeles, putting on a body glove, a new one by the looks of it and stowing various weapons and other things inside it before finishing off with loose pants and a long-sleeved shirt.

"What about the badge?" she wondered.

"It's fake." he said, pointing to her discarded top and then to her.

"How do you know?" she took the hint and put it back on, the lost chance of sex momentarily forgotten.

"There's nothing on the bottom." he looked at her, finishing with the gearing up. "Omaha police badges have the letters OPD stamped on the bottom. Also, look at the right man's rank insignia. It has three stars. The two on the left both have two connected bars."

"So?" she wondered.

"There's no three star insignia in the Omaha police force." Leonard said urgently as he pushed her towards the door. "Chief of police has four stars, Deputy Chief is two stars. Also, those two on the left? When has a police raiding force ever consisted of two captains?"

"Shit!" she cursed. "What now?"

"Come with me, you're driving." he said.

They ran to the elevator and rode it down to the first floor, Leonard steering her out of the building and following her to her car. Penny got in and unlocked the passenger side door so he could get in. She drove for ten minutes before she felt Leonard's hand on her right arm.

"Stop!" he said and she did.

"What?" she asked.

"Wait here, I'll be right back." he told her and exited the car, walking briskly into the clothing he made her stop in front of and coming back out three minutes later.

"What did you buy?" she wanted to know.

"Cover story." he replied and handed her the bag.

"Wow." she was impressed, seeing in it packages with underwear, a bra, a pair of pajamas and two shirts, all items even looking like stuff she would wear. "How do you know my size and taste so well?"

"I have eyes." he said cryptically. "Drive."

She started the car again and drove off, taking the main road towards the area where her parents' farm was located. Twenty minutes later, she arrived at the road junction that would leave to her parents' place and she was about to make the turn when she again felt his hand on her arm, making her stop the car right away without him having to tell her.

"Where are you going?" she asked when he stepped out of the car.

"On foot." he said, closing the door. "Go to your house and go in, act normal and then sit tight."

"But what if these guys simply decide to kill us?" she was worried.

"Take this." he said and handed her a tiny gun, small enough to fit completely in her palm. "If you think they are going to shoot, kill them first. Six shots only though and short range. Don't miss. And if you shoot one, run like hell."

"Crap!" Penny cursed again and tried to stay calm as she closed in on her home, seeing three unmarked SUVs standing outside the property.

She exited the truck and grabbed the bag with the clothes and stepped out of the car, trying to not hyperventilate as she felt her heart rate go up. With shaking hands, she opened the door and walked in, only to shriek when she was suddenly pulled into living room.

"What the hell?" she shouted. "What's going on here?"

"Who are you?" the officer in front of her asked.

"That's my other daughter." Meryl told the man.

"What's in the bag?" he asked, grabbing it and looking inside.

"Clothes." Penny told him, getting the bag thrown back at her while she noticed the other three men standing around the room. "What's going on here?"

"We are looking for this man." the man showed her a picture of Leonard, an older one by her guess.

"No idea who that is." she told him and turned to her parents. "Do they have a warrant?"

"Shut up." the man shouted and turned around to speak into his radio. "East perimeter, found him yet?"

"No." a voice came back. "The damn crops are shoulder high, how are we supposed to find this guy, if he's even here?"

"Shut up and keep looking." the man ordered. "West perimeter, found anything?"

"No." another voice retorted. "Like Grey said, hard to find... argh!"

"White?" the man shouted over the sounds of rustling coming from the radio. "White! What happened?"

"Sorry, I stepped into a fucking rabbit hole." came the voice back, though Penny could swear it wasn't the same guy because even though it sounded the same, the cadence seemed off. "We could use more help out here if you want this to finish before dark."

"You two, go and help them." the man ordered and two of the other three left the house through the kitchen.

The minutes passed in high tension, Penny holding her hand over her pants pocket where the small gun was hidden in. The man watched them and sometimes looked around the room while his colleagues searched the wheat fields. She wondered what Leonard was doing right now, if he was among them or still circulating around her property.

"Sit rep." the man spoke into his radio, receiving only silence. "I said, sit rep!"

"Situation normal, all fucked up." a whisper came back.

"Shit!" the man cursed and drew his weapon, the other guy doing the same and both taking up position at the hallway that lead to the kitchen and out of the house. "Do you see something?"

"Nothing." the other guy said. "That guy can't have taken out all the others, could he?"

"I told you he was good." the first guy was clearly worried.

"At least we have hostages." the second guy pointed at Penny and her family.

"Kill one of them." the first guy ordered and Penny began to panic, fumbling for the small revolver Leonard had given them but the expected shot didn't come. "I told you to kill one of them!"

"Oh god!" she whispered, when she saw blood coming out of the second guy's mouth.

"Green?" the first guy looked questionably at his bleeding companion before he fell forward, the knife Leonard had slit into the back of his throat coming out.

Faster than she could comprehend, Leonard jumped forward and tackled the other guy, both crashing over their living room table, overturning the piece of furniture. Both jumped back up, Leonard holding the knife the way he had shown her with the scalpel, blade part back and in line with his forearm, while the other guy also produce a knife.

"I've waited a long time for this." the man said. "How are you John?"

"I've been better." Leonard said, the other guy apparently unaware of Leonard's real name. "What do you think you are doing, Caspar?"

"Proving that I'm better than you." Caspar told him, both circling each other.

"By threatening outsiders?" Leonard looked disapprovingly at him. "Very brave. The bomb, was that you?"

"Yes." Caspar nodded. "Though you could have done me the favor of dying in the explosion, old man. It's a young man's world."

"Why?" Leonard scoffed. "I'm still better than you."

"Oh, shut up!" Caspar shouted and attacked.

"Jesus." Penny gasped when she saw the two move, both masters of their art.

The sound of their knife blades colliding rang up the room, making Penny and her family jump up from the couch and run towards the stairs that lead to the bedrooms. Her dad ran upstairs and returned with his shotgun, unable to use it because the two men were too fast and intertwined for him to take a shot.

Penny gasped when she saw Caspar slice into Leonard's arm but cheered when Leonard retorted with a snap fist into Caspar's face, something in the man's nose visibly and audibly breaking and blood squirting out of it. Penny could see that Leonard was favoring his right side and she was worried that the wound on his hip had torn open again, which would be a bad omen if the fight took much longer.

Caspar sliced forward, Leonard leaning back and in doing so, his leg snapped up, his foot connecting with Caspar's wrist, the knife flying from the man's hand and eliciting a pained shout from the man. The victory was short-lived when Caspar threw a plate at Leonard, with him lifting is arms to shield his face but when he lowered them, Caspar did a roundhouse kick, causing Leonard to lose his knife as well.

Leonard rallied quickly, attacking Caspar with his bare hands, the other man defending. Penny had seen a few martial arts movies in her time but this was very different then those. This was a fight to the death, no move done for style but only for killing the opponent. Their arms and legs connected again and again in offense and defense, both dancing through the room and using whatever they found, which damaged or destroyed quite a bit of their furniture.

Suddenly, Caspar grabbed Leonard's knife from the floor but it had a smaller handle than his own due to Leonard's smaller size. He still attacked and Leonard desperately evaded, Penny seeing his troubles due to the hip injury and as Leonard moved around the room with the other guy after him, he grabbed a frying pan from one of the cupboards, using it as a shield and club.

Caspar yelled in pain when the pan connected to parts of his body, his shoulders, hands and once on his head. Apparently, he had enough of the fight because suddenly, he threw the knife at Leonard who deflected it with the pan but when he lowered it again, Caspar was holding a gun, pointing it at Leonard but before he could pull the trigger, Leonard threw the pan, Caspar blocking it with his arms.

When Caspar lowered his arms, Leonard slammed into him, both men rolling on the floor again. Leonard's injuries must have been worse than she though because Caspar, with his superior size and weight rolled on top of him, holding him down and slamming the barrel of the gun against Leonard's wounded hip, making him yell out in pain.

Penny screamed when the shot rang out.

* * *

**A man came to my door today. I hate that guy. Everybody I know hates that guy. He introduced himself as Cliff. Cliff Hanger. He said he would stay for weeks or even months, but there's something that Cliff Hanger really, really hates and that's reviews. The more he sees, the faster he leaves again. :D So...**

**Review please :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**Congratulations. I opened the fanfiction site and when Cliff Hanger saw it, he screamed and ran away. But remember, he's like cockroaches, he'll always threatens to return ;)**

**Enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.**

**Disclaimer2: I'm again using the Penny family members that TerribleWaitress created, simply because I'm used to it :D**

* * *

Penny couldn't hear anything. Blood was rushing past her ears as she stood transfixed, drowning out the shouts of her family. When her eyes connected with Leonard's, feeling returned into her extremities and she dropped the small pistol she had shot the attacker with, the bullet having entered his spine in the upper lumbar region while Wyatt, who had been about to pull the trigger of his shotgun lowered his weapon again, putting it on the steps to comfort his daughter who was still unresponsive.

Leonard pushed Caspar off of him, the other man giving out a shout of pain while unable to move his legs at all while his arms felt numb enough not to be usable for the moment. Leonard fought himself into a sitting position, holding his left side and Penny could only imagine how the wound must look under the material of his body glove.

"Thank you." Leonard said sincerely, his eyes piercing into her soul.

"I shot him." Penny said numbly.

"You did." Leonard nodded and limped over to her, gently taking her hand. "And you saved my life and the lives of your family."

"Yeah." she agreed and promptly threw up.

"Let it all out." Meryl said, kneeling down next to her and holding her hair back. "See, I told you that you wouldn't be cut out for something like that."

"Actually, that may not be the case, I threw up after my first kill as well." Leonard interjected. "And way more violently than she is doing."

"Not helping!" Meryl hissed.

"Sorry." Leonard apologized and hobbled over to the prone Caspar who was whimpering.

"Help, I can't feel my legs." he cried as Leonard turned him around.

"The bullet destroyed your L three and L four vertebrae." Leonard told him. "You will never walk again."

"That can't be." Caspar whispered.

"Tell me something, Caspar." Leonard gave him a slap in the face, getting his attention. "Why did you do this? Why try to kill me? What did I ever do to you?"

"You're destroying our business." Caspar said accusingly. "And you keep us young people from getting anywhere and earning a lot of money."

"Okay, I'll play along." Leonard sighed. "How exactly am I doing that?"

"Don't act as if you don't know." Caspar said accusingly. "You take the best contracts and you don't even touch the smaller ones, leaving us to fight over the scraps of what you and the other old hands ignore."

"I'm in my early thirties." Leonard pointed out.

"And all we hear in the hotels is about your exploits. Killing the child rapist? Destroying an entire drug cartel with a vial of poison? And all the others before." Caspar whined. "And then you and the other old guys take it upon yourself to go after a drug and human trafficking ring without any hope of payment. What kind of businessmen are you?"

"The kind that sees brotherhood as more important than mere money." Leonard said.

"At least do the decent thing and call the doctor." Caspar demanded.

"No." Leonard shook his head and grabbed his knife from the floor. "Consider your membership in the brotherhood... revoked."

"No wait, please..." Caspar tried but anything else was replaced with gargling as Leonard drove his knife into the man's chest, directly into the heart to limit the amount of blood that would spill out.

"I..." Wyatt tried to process what he had just seen.

"May I use your phone?" Leonard asked. "My cellphone has been damaged in the fight."

"Uh... sure." Meryl pointed to the phone on the table, Leonard going to it and sitting down next to it before dialing a number.

"Yes, I'd like to order food for thirteen people at the address of this number, with dessert." he spoke into the receiver. "Yes, I'll be here."

"Oh god, how do we get rid of all the bodies?" Meryl asked.

"We wait." Leonard said and opened his body glove, slowly pushing it down to his hip, revealing his bleeding hip wound, the stitches having gotten torn during the fight. "I could use a bit of help again."

"Oh god, do I have to play operation on you again?" Meryl was worried.

"No, some iodine and a lighter will suffice this time." Leonard chuckled. "Only have to sow it up again."

"How you can do that without screaming is still beyond me." Bridget winced as Leonard drove the needle and thread through his skin once he got supplied with the lighter.

"You wouldn't do that even in an emergency, I guess?" Leonard asked.

"Are you kidding?" Bridget looked at him with wide eyes. "If that happened to me, I'd be screaming my head off. I have a very low tolerance for pain."

"Just wait until you give birth to a child." Meryl threw in.

"Right." Bridget scoffed. "I will do that sitting in a pool of warm water after they have used a garden hose to fill me up with pain medication."

"Penny, you should lie down." Wyatt counseled, trying to pull her to her feet so she could walk up the stairs.

"Okay." Penny just nodded, still visibly in shock from having shot Caspar.

"Does she realize that she actually hasn't killed the guy?" Bridget wondered when Penny was gone.

"I don't think Penny can think straight right now." Meryl admonished her oldest daughter. "Cut her some slack."

"Sorry, mom." Bridget sighed and looked at the two corpses in the living room. "Jesus, this is actually the first time I've seen a dead man."

"Don't worry, they'll be taken care of soon." Leonard said from his spot at the table, where he was finishing with sowing up his wound.

"Let me take care of that." Meryl said and took the bowl with the bloody needle. "You need the needle back?"

"No, you can throw that out." Leonard shook his head. "I hate to ask, but could I trouble you for another shirt?"

"Of course." Meryl nodded before leaving for the kitchen, from where she went upstairs and returned downstairs with a shirt and pants in hand, Wyatt right behind her.

"Penny's sleeping, for the moment at least." Wyatt told them. "So, what do we do with those bodies?"

"They will be..." Leonard started but was interrupted by the door.

"Oh no, what now?" Wyatt worried about more attackers.

"It's fine." Leonard told him.

"I'll get it." Meryl said and opened the door, revealing a short man and five large, burly-looking men behind him.

"Good afternoon, mam." the short man greeted her, taking off his hat, his words reminding her that it wasn't even that late yet.

"Um... hello." Meryl stammered, not quite sure how to react to the man and especially the five men behind him who all had stoic faces.

"Hello Charlie." Leonard came over to the door.

"Good to see you, Leonard." Charlie nodded at him and stepping into the house, seeing the two bodies on the floor. "You said thirteen on the phone."

"The others are in the fields outside." Leonard told him. "I put GPS trackers on them."

"Frequency?" Charlie asked.

"Here you go." Leonard handed him a piece of paper.

"Thank you." Charlie smiled and tilted his head, telling his men to start working.

Meryl, Wyatt and Bridget watched on in awe as the five men came into the house, carrying mops, cleaning supplies and several rolls of stretch wrap. Two of them began to wrap the corpses into the wrap, making several layers and carrying them outside while the third collected their weapons and other gear and the remaining two cleaned the floor and wall with bleach before adding a lavender-scented coat to mask he smell.

When the two bodies in the house were taken care of, the men went outside, carrying a transceiver to find the GPS beacons that Leonard had placed on the corpses. The process took a while since the men Leonard had taken out were spread out but several hours later, when the sky began darkening, they carried the last body to their vans.

"I made a few sandwiches, if you're hungry." Meryl offered them a plate full of bread-enclosed meat and salad.

"Oh, thank you so much, mam." one of the burly men said, with a surprisingly high voice.

Faster than she had ever seen someone eat, the five men wolfed down the ten sandwiches, before nodding their thanks and leaving the house. Charlie stayed behind, his hat still in his hands and expectantly looked at Leonard who nodded and got up from his chair.

"Thanks, Charlie." Leonard said and handed him twenty gold coins while Charlie gave Leonard the GPS beacons.

"Wait, what about their cars?" Wyatt wondered.

"We'll take care of those too." Charlie nodded at them and left the house.

"It's the dessert part of my order." Leonard explained after they closed the door.

"This code talking is really confusing." Wyatt shook his head.

"It's a lot better than having to explain to law enforcement why you ordered the removal of a dozen corpses should they ever check your phone records." Leonard shrugged.

"Well, if you say it like that..." Wyatt had to admit and sighed. "You got any sandwiches for us too?"

"I'll make some more, you take care of the animals." Meryl told him.

"Yes, honey." Wyatt smiled and left the house.

"Can I help with something?" Leonard asked.

"Nah." Meryl waved him off. "You saved our lives and you're wounded."

"I put you in danger in the first place." Leonard argued, getting up.

"Sit down." Meryl ordered and Leonard felt compelled to do so.

"Your mother can be very authoritative." Leonard said when Meryl had gone to the kitchen.

"Tell me about it." Bridget chuckled. "So, what exactly happens to those bodies now? And their gear?"

"The bodies will be brought to the hotel I stay in, where they will be burned in the crematorium beneath it." Leonard told her. "Their weapons and other gear will be dissolved in acid and their clothes will be burned. If the weapons have no other crime attached to them, they will be repurposed for people like me."

"Jesus, what kind of organization is this?" Bridget gasped.

"I think it's safe to assume that for everyone like me, there are a few hundred people working in support." Leonard shrugged.

"Do you do jobs everywhere in the world?"

"Yes, though we tend to stay in countries where we can blend in." Leonard nodded. "I kinda stand out in Asian countries."

"Yeah, I guess." Bridget accepted. "Do you speak other languages?"

"Yes, I speak German and some Russian and Spanish, though the latter two only broken."

"Here you go." Meryl announced, bringing out another plate of sandwiches.

"Thank you." Leonard nodded to her.

"You can sleep in my son's room this time since Penny is in her bed tonight." Meryl told him, more or less ordering him to stay the night.

"Of course." Leonard nodded as Wyatt came back and took a sandwich. "I'd like to use your laptop again if that's okay."

"What for this time?" Wyatt asked.

"I had to kill one of our own, I need to report it to the others." Leonard told him.

"Will you get into trouble over it?" Bridget wanted to know.

"Unlikely." Leonard shrugged. "Caspar broke the rules by interfering in my job, he tried to kill me first and I'm known in my circles for my integrity, so there won't be a problem about people not believing me. It will also act as a little reminder to the young people, so to speak, that there are consequences."

"Okay, I'm beat." Bridget sighed. "I'm heading to bed and tomorrow, I'll have to return to Kearney anyway."

"We'll go to bed too." Meryl agreed with her daughter and got up, Wyatt heading up the stairs first so he could use the shower.

"Leonard, sleep well." Wyatt said before he reached the top of the stairs.

"Thanks, you too." Leonard nodded and sat down on the armchair, Meryl's laptop in front of him, his flash drive plugged into the machine.

He looked up to the stairs and waited until the sounds of footsteps were gone, only the sounds of showers running reaching his ears. He booted up the laptop, the machine reading his flash drive and loading up the specially made operating system housed on the small handheld device. He opened the messenger program and checked if the person he was looking for was online and luckily for him, he was. He quickly began typing.

_Lone Wolf: H., you there?_

_Lord of the Gear: L., I heard about the bomb. How are you?_

_Lone Wolf: I could be better. Got injured from debris._

_Lord of the Gear: Does the hotel have a new doctor yet?_

_Lone Wolf: No, not yet. Collapsed and was brought to the family of the girl you saw in the recording I told you to alter._

_Lord of the Gear: Was that a good idea?_

_Lone Wolf: Not mine, was barely conscious at that point._

_Lord of the Gear: By the way, want me to send you a copy of the finished alteration?_

_Lone Wolf: Sure._

_Lord of the Gear: Sending now. Anything else?_

_Lone Wolf: Yes. I need you to send a message to the board. I had to kill one of our own._

_Lord of the Gear: Oh no, who?_

_Lone Wolf: Caspar. He was the one who planted the bomb and he wanted me to die in the explosion. He also hired a crew, they all dressed up as cops and searched the home of the family who took me in to find me._

_Lord of the Gear: You killed all of them?_

_Lone Wolf: Yes, the bodies are already taken care of and their cars were taken away as well._

_Lord of the Gear: Charlie being thorough as usual?_

_Lone Wolf: Very._

_Lord of the Gear: Need me to call a car service for you?_

_Lone Wolf: No, I'm staying here for the night, the family offered and I'm still weak from the fight and my reopened wound. Shouldn't be any more problems._

_Lord of the Gear: Not if the others hear what you did. Did Caspar tell you why he did it?_

_Lone Wolf: Yes, jealousy. He was angry that me and the other "old hands" as he called us, take the best jobs and leave nothing good and valuable for them._

_Lord of the Gear: Someone should teach these guys some history. We all started like that._

_Lone Wolf: I know, but Caspar was beyond understanding._

_Lord of the Gear: Will post it, don't worry. You need some new gear?_

_Lone Wolf: I have one damaged body glove, other than that, everything's fine. Also, tell B. that her concoction worked like a charm._

_Lord of the Gear: She'll be glad to hear it._

_Lone Wolf: One more thing. It's possible that I'll bring someone new to you for a fitting and gearing out._

_Lord of the Gear: What, who?_

_Lone Wolf: The girl I saved and who saved me twice. I get the feeling that she wants to do what I do and no matter what I say, I can't seem to dissuade her from the notion._

_Lord of the Gear: Did you explain that you shouldn't want to do what you do?_

_Lone Wolf: Yes but she already did her first kill, or at least that what she thinks. She shot Caspar when he was about to kill me._

_Lord of the Gear: Caspar got the better of you?_

_Lone Wolf: Hip and shoulder wound._

_Lord of the Gear: Alright, understandable. When can we expect her?_

_Lone Wolf: If she really does want to learn, I'll have her be trained in combat techniques first. If she doesn't give up there, I'll bring her to S. for the theoretical stuff. And if she manages to get through that without killing herself, I'll come to you guys. _

_Lord of the Gear: So, a year or thereabouts. Oh, before I forget, we got your overnight package. Thanks._

_Lone Wolf: What for? I owed you._

_Lord of the Gear: Not that much._

_Lone Wolf: Just take it._

_Lord of the Gear: Oh, we will. B. is ecstatic because now we can afford a new genetic sequencer. She can concoct a lot better poisons now._

_Lone Wolf: Which only helps me._

_Lord of the Gear: Video has finished sending_

_Lone Wolf: Thanks, H. I'll review it and then head to bed._

_Lord of the Gear: Sleep well and get healthy again. The boards are filling again with high profile targets and the brotherhood is still dealing with the fallout of the child abduction case._

_Lone Wolf: The Omaha, Nebraska arm has been amputated. Unfortunately, thanks to Caspar's bomb, I couldn't get any data from their hard drives._

_Lord of the Gear: You got an address? Maybe they have an offsite server._

_Lone Wolf: Rose Club. Owner was..._

_Lord of the Gear: No need, got everything. Will dive into the web. You, sleep well._

_Lone Wolf: Thanks, H. See you soon. Tell B. I say hi._

_Lord of the Gear: Will do. Bye, L._

Leonard logged out of the messenger, the program deleting any logs as soon as it closed. He checked a few message feeds and looked at available jobs on the board but decided not to accept any right now, since he still had to recuperate from his wounds. While he would have no problem doing some of the information gathering jobs, he didn't want to risk it. Lastly, he looked at the video, seeing the alteration that was made to it and instead of him going into the alley and coming out with Penny, a gang of bikers went in and came back out.

He booted down the operating system and shut off the laptop, then disconnected his flash drive again, leaving no trace of use on Meryl's laptop. He leaned back and yawned, finding the time shortly before midnight, his work having taken a few hours. He got up and walked upstairs, entering the room of the son and finding the bed made and a fresh shirt as well as a fresh pair of shorts lying on it.

With a smile of gratefulness at their generosity, he took off his bloody attire and put it into a plastic bag before heading into the shower. He once more put a plastic covering over the stitches and cleaned himself from the sweat and residual blood he had on his body. As he dried himself off, he thought about how his life had changed the past few weeks.

What had began as a cut and dry poisoning of a child rapist had led to him meeting a beautiful and fascinating woman who had been so quick in accepting what he did and also meeting her family who also accepted what he did, or at least pretended to. And even though he had put them in danger by his presence, they still invited them into their home to spend the night. He could only hope that his measures would stop anyone else from messing with them since he didn't know if he could stomach if something happened to them because of their association with him.

Although he knew that he probably shouldn't do it, he left the room and entered Penny's, feeling the need to check up on her. He opened her door and found her asleep, the moonlight coming in from the window illuminating her face. He smiled at her peaceful expression, hoping that the experience of her shooting someone, even if she didn't kill him, hasn't destroyed her remaining innocence fully.

"Leonard?" she suddenly said, startling him a bit.

"Sorry, I didn't want to wake you." he apologized.

"What are you doing here? What time is it?" she asked, a bit confused.

"I wanted to check if you're alright, since you were quite in shock earlier. And it's just past eleven." Leonard replied. "How do you feel?"

"Better." Penny sighed, sitting up and pointing to her bed, where Leonard sat down next to her. "How do you feel?"

"Better." he repeated what she said. "Not my first wound that reopened and won't be my last."

"I can't believe I shot a man." Penny mused. "And do I have to worry that I feel nothing?"

"No, it's a good thing." Leonard shook his head. "I would be worried if you had said that you liked it. But to put your mind at ease, you didn't kill him."

"I didn't?" Penny looked at him in surprise. "But I shot him in the back."

"Yes, and you saved my life in the process, twice over." Leonard reminded her. "But he wasn't dead. I killed him afterwards."

"Wait, what did you mean with twice over?" she wondered.

"Your dad was about to shoot him as well." he told her. "And while I don't doubt that your dad can shoot, a shotgun blast at that range would have hit me too."

"Then I'm kinda glad that I took the shot." she chuckled.

"So again, thank you." he said sincerely and gave her a kiss on the cheek before making a move to get up.

"Wait, Leonard." she stopped him and properly kissed him.

"We shouldn't do this." he mumbled, yet made no move to separate, returning the kiss with full force, his arms slung around her body, though he felt the sting in his hip due to his position, his upper body turned left.

"No, we shouldn't." Penny agreed, though with a hefty dose of sarcasm and humor, getting up and swinging her left leg over his lap, strengthening the kiss.

"We should stop." Leonard said when he separated his lips from hers, his mouth moving down her neck, but he wasn't serious and Penny knew it.

"Yeah, we really should." she nodded and pulled her top off before kissing him again.

His hands moved from her hip up to her breasts, his palms coming to rest on them and gently squeezing, his index- and middle finger gently rolling her nipples between them. Penny moaned into the kiss and began humping him, her hips moving back and forth. Leonard knew he should end this but the way that Penny was pressing against him, he doubted he could stop her short of knocking her out.

He also didn't want to. The last time he had been with a woman was almost five years ago when he had infiltrated a North Korean spy ring to find a mole in the state department and used sex with one of the women there to get information while the woman had tried the same, unsuccessful in that regard, having never met someone like Leonard.

But this felt different. This was no way to get information, this was genuine and wanted. Penny opened the buttons of his borrowed shirt and pushed it off of him, making sure she wasn't bumping her hand against his wound. Both now topless, Penny renewed her assault on his lips, aware that he might end it at any point but determined not to let him get out of it so easily.

Suddenly, she felt herself lifted into the air and put on her back. She expected Leonard to stand up and leave her and formulated a number of responses and arguments as to they they should continue. But instead of doing what she thought he would do, Leonard kept kissing her while his hands moved to her jeans shorts, opening the button and pulling them down to her thighs.

Normally, he'd have to stop kissing her to pull them off completely but he had a different idea. His hand moved between her legs, applying pressure against her core through her panties and Penny began breathing hard, her hips pushing against his hand for more friction. As wound up as she was, it didn't take long for her to topple over the edge, her body beginning to shake from the climax he had caused.

He finally released her lips and stood up, his hands moving to her shorts and pulling again. She closed her legs and let him take them off of her and lifted her hips when he followed suit with her panties, leaving her naked in front of him. His eyes roamed her center, his tongue flicking over his lips in anticipation and she sat up, pushing down the shorts he was wearing and leaving him as naked as she was.

Doing what she was used to from her recent past, she leaned forward and took him into her mouth, Leonard groaning in pleasure as a result. She felt him twitch and adjusted her efforts accordingly until he pushed her head away, bending down to kiss her again. Then something happened that never happened before in her life, ever since she became sexually active.

Leonard went down on her.

As her hips undulated as hard as they could to get more friction, she realized that no boyfriend she had before nor anyone of her clients ever did that to her. Her clients never cared for her pleasure anyway, Kurt had only used her to get his and her earlier boyfriends usually had no experience but never wanted to try.

Four minutes later, she climaxed again, a suppressed wail escaping her mouth, her hand covering it to avoid her sister, who was sleeping in the adjacent room, from waking up. Leonard stopped and stood up again, Penny turning so she was on the bed proper and Leonard climbed on it again, moving towards her. Penny spread her legs and awaited him and after lining himself up, Leonard pushed in.

He wasn't the most endowed she ever had, but this felt better than any she had before. After a few seconds of adjusting, Leonard began moving, slowly at first but getting a bit faster while Penny wrapped her legs around his waist and squeezed him close to her.. She heard him groan a few times and for some reason, she felt it was from pain instead of pleasure. After a few minutes, he took her right leg and pushed it away from her body, keeping her hand on it while he kept thrusting.

With shock, she realized the reason he did it. Squeezing him, she had put a lot of pressure against his wound and she was impressed and thankful that he had continued anyway instead of stopping. Pushing her leg to the side more, he got the signal and let go, his hand returning to her face to hold it while they kissed.

Thinking for a moment about what direction she had to go to, she rolled them over his right side, making sure her leg wasn't scraping over his left hip. She knew she couldn't bounce on him and she also couldn't squeeze her legs against his body for obvious reasons so she kept her legs spread apart and gently rode him, her hips moving back and forth, sometimes alternating with gyrating motions, leaning back her body to avoid touching his bad spot by accident.

More and more minutes passed and suddenly, he grabbed her and flipped them back around. He began pounding her hard, his mouth on hers again and she squealed into his mouth while he groaned back as he climaxed, slamming down hard with every impulse. When he was finished, he rolled over on his right side and gave a satisfied sigh.

"Wow." Penny giggled, her body flush with endorphins. "That was... something."

"Agreed." Leonard said and pushed against her skin, telling her without words to turn onto her right as well, both ending up spooning. "Though it will probably be more enjoyable for me next time when my injury is healed."

Penny didn't say anything but did a little happy dance in her mind because what she had just heard was him saying that he didn't want this to be a one time thing. With a smile, she closed her eyes and despite the fact that she had slept for hours already, she fell back into a satisfied rest.

* * *

**Alright, done with this one. Hope you liked it.**

**Review please :)**


	7. Chapter 7

**Work schedule allows me to write a bit before noon when my housework is done :) Don't get used to it :D**

**Enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.**

**Disclaimer2: I'm again using the Penny family members that TerribleWaitress created, simply because I'm used to it :D**

* * *

When Penny woke up, she was smiling as wide as she had been when she went to sleep. Then again, it wasn't the first time that day that she had woken up and went back to sleep with a smile. It must have been at somewhere around two in the morning when she had woken up because Leonard had run his hand over her leg and hip.

As soon as he had noticed that she was awake, he had kissed her neck, rolled her over onto her stomach and entered her. What had followed was ten minutes of grunting and quiet moaning, both trying not to be too loud since it was the dead of night and Penny's sister was on the other side of the wall.

This was the closest Penny had felt to the past three years when strange men had taken from her what they wanted but she also had known that if she had told him that she didn't want to, he'd never have done it. But even with that thought, she had welcomed him, the act feeling more intimate than any she had since the beginning of her relationship with Kurt, the end of it nothing worth remembering.

At roughly five in the morning, it had happened again but this time, it was Penny who wanted one more. She had poked him in the chest until he had woken up and with a smile, she had mounted him and proceeded to ride him gently, still mindful of his injury, though he must have felt better because when his hands weren't on her breasts or interlocked with hers, they were on her hips, moving her harder.

She had been worried that it may have been too much for him, especially given his condition, but unbeknownst to her, it had been Leonard's first carnal encounter since the Korean spy five years ago and with Penny, he had realized how much he had missed it. He gladly took the discomfort in his hip for the feeling of sex that he got in return.

Still smiling, Penny got up and walked into the bathroom for some much needed release and afterwards, she washed her face and brushed her teeth. To her surprise, she hadn't even though of putting on clothes after getting up, showing her how comfortable she already felt around him. With a new smile and thoughts of round four swirling in her head, she returned to her bedroom but when she saw her bed, her smile faded when she found it empty.

"What the fuck?" she gasped and looked around, not seeing his borrowed clothes anywhere.

With a curse, she grabbed her clothes from the day before and quickly jumped into them, not even bothering with underwear in her haste, just her jeans shorts and the tank top. She practically jumped into her slippers and almost ripped the door of its hinges when she opened it before stomping down the stairs in a quickly rising rage, finding her mother in the kitchen, where she was cooking bacon and scrambled eggs.

"Did Leonard leave again?" she asked her mother.

"No, I'm here." his voice startled her and she found him standing in the corner of the kitchen, hidden by the open door.

"Oh." her anger dissipated as fast as it had come as she watched him rub the zinc paste onto his wounds. "I thought you had left."

"Penny, you're acting as if he's your date who slipped out the window during the night." Meryl joked but saw her daughter's blushing face and heard Leonard's subdued cough, making her grin. "Oh, I see."

"Please don't tell dad." Penny pleaded.

"Don't worry, he likes Leonard." Meryl winked. "So he wouldn't hurt him about that."

"Hurting Leonard about what?" an appearing Bridget asked.

"Nothing." Penny shook her head.

"Okay." Bridget shrugged. "I almost thought you would tell me that you and Leonard did it like rabbits three times last night."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Penny blushed so hard that she felt she would combust.

"Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh. Oh, it's so hard. Oh god, yes! I'm coming!" Bridget mimicked the sounds and words she had heard through the wall the night before. "Should I go on with the sounds your bed springs were making?"

"Please don't." Penny pleaded, her face burning.

"What have I gotten myself into here." Leonard groaned in embarrassment.

"You'll get used to it." Bridget laughed.

"I doubt that." Leonard shook his head.

"When did you get up?" Penny asked him.

"Six." Leonard told her. "Did some meditative techniques and slow combat routines."

"Is that wise?" Bridget wondered.

"As I said before, this isn't my first rodeo." Leonard shrugged. "I know what I can do without stitches ripping."

"What kind of meditation do you do?" Penny asked. "Do you sit around with your hands on your knees?"

"No, I do Tai Chi." Leonard replied. "It's a regular martial art that when done slow is used for meditation."

"Can you do other martial arts forms?" Bridget wanted to know.

"Yes, Krav Maga, Wushu and Wing Chun." Leonard nodded. "When I fight, I use a style combining all three forms."

"I heard of the last one from some Asian movie but the rest..." Bridget shrugged.

"Krav Maga is an Israeli martial art form that is focused on efficiency in combat. Finish a fight as quickly as possible with the least amount of energy so you can fight on." Leonard explained.

"I can attest to that." Penny nodded. "He took out five guys that almost raped me by breaking their bones."

"You were almost raped?" Meryl shrieked. "Why didn't you tell me? Did you call the police?"

"Leonard saved me from them." Penny pointed out. "And believe me, what they got was worse than what the police would have done."

"And the other forms?" Bridget directed at Leonard, wanting to stop the developing argument between her mother and sister.

"Wushu is traditional Chinese martial arts while Wing Chun is more focused on defense." Leonard finished.

"No Kung Fu?" Bridget grinned.

"Kung Fu isn't a martial art." Leonard shook his head. "It's only called that because of people in the west, who coined all Chinese martial arts as Kung Fu that we use that term at all."

"Then what is Kung Fu?" Meryl asked, eager to learn this.

"Kung Fu means hard work over time to accomplish a skill, any skill." Leonard told her. "A painter can have Kung Fu or even a butcher who cuts meat every day with such a skill that his knife never touches bone. A musician or a poet can have Kung Fu, those who paint perfect pictures with words."

"Very poetic." Bridget chuckled.

"My point is, someone like me needs to be versatile." Leonard went on. "I can also use weapons like swords, knifes and even clubs, with one or both hands and I can accurately shoot almost every type of gun."

"I'm kinda scared now." Bridget shuddered. "Just for curiosity's sake, if you had to, how many ways would you know how to kill me, lets say with stuff from this room?"

"That's kinda morbid." Leonard commented.

"I know but I'm curious." Bridget shrugged.

"Just by looking around and knowing what's in the drawers, I can see five ways of killing you." Leonard said after looking around.

"Only five?" Bridget was surprised.

"Well, I count several things as one way." Leonard shrugged. "Cutlery, which is spoons, forks and knives, furniture, which is the table or one of the chairs, the dishes, so plates and whatnot, pots and pans is counted as one and of course, the lamp."

"The lamp?" Penny wondered, looking at the light source above them. "How?"

"I can either use the light bulb by smashing it and using a shard to cut open your aorta or wrists or even cut your throat or take out the bulb and use the power cords to electrocute you."

"Jesus." Penny gasped.

"Well, now that I'm properly scared to death, I have to get back home." Bridget announced and got up. "Me and Josh are supposed to be at his parents' for lunch."

"You're not staying for breakfast?" Penny asked.

"I already ate." Bridget told her and went to hug her sister. "Nice catch."

"Ah, thanks?" Penny replied to her sister's whispered words. "What do you mean?"

"Him." she leaned her head into Leonard's direction. "Be careful not to break him while he's not healed yet."

"Bridget!" Penny hissed. "I wont."

"Bye mom." Bridget hugged her mother as well.

"Don't forget to say goodbye to your dad." Meryl told her.

"Will do." Bridget nodded and went out the back door to say goodbye to her dad as well, finding him in on the yard, tending to his tractor. "Bye dad."

"You're leaving?" Wyatt asked, accepting Bridget's hug.

"Yeah, Josh and me are going to his parents for lunch." Bridget confirmed.

"Drive safe, honey." Wyatt said when he released her. "Before you go, what's your opinion about our guest?"

"I think he'll be good for Penny." Bridget shrugged.

"What do you mean?" Wyatt looked at her confused. "Are they...?"

"Oh yes." Bridget giggled. "If you weren't such a heavy sleeper, you'd know what I mean."

"Alright." Wyatt rolled his eyes. "But if that's such a good idea given what Penny had gone through?"

"I think so." Bridget nodded. "First, she chose him, he didn't force himself on her. And second, I firmly believe that he will treat her as an equal and not a piece of meat to use as he sees fit."

"I talked with your mom last night and she thinks that Penny wants to go with him, to do what he does." Wyatt said.

"I kinda get that feeling too." Bridget nodded. "Again, it would be her choice. You know how stubborn the women in this family can be."

"Yeah, the only way to stop her would be to tie her up." Wyatt sighed. "Alright, thanks honey."

"Bye dad!" Bridget yelled as she walked away, past the house instead of through it to get to her car.

"Penny, you want to get dressed?" Meryl suggested, making Penny aware that she was still clad in her clothes from the day before without underwear. "I'll make you some breakfast then."

"Yeah, sure, be right back." she nodded and left them alone.

"Leonard, what do you think about Penny wanting to learn what you do?" Meryl asked him point blank.

"I tried to talk her out of it, she wouldn't budge." Leonard shrugged.

"You could still refuse and leave." Meryl suggested. "Even though it would hurt her feelings."

"Frankly, I think she would find me wherever I go." Leonard chuckled sadly. "And she seems too determined."

"She is." Meryl sighed.

"So, would you rather have me train her or that she tries to emulate me without any training at all?"

"I hate that that makes sense." Meryl put her hands over her face. "How will you do that?"

"I don't do it at all." Leonard said. "For the physical fighting and weapons training, I'll bring her to the man who taught me everything. Then to some associates of mine for the rest."

"And what will you do in the meantime?"

"Once I've healed properly, I'll do what I always did." Leonard shrugged again. "There are still a lot of bad people in the world that others want to see dead."

"Do you always kill your targets?"

"Usually, yes." Leonard nodded. "But sometimes, destroying someone's reputation is a worse punishment than death could ever be."

"Why do you do it anyway?"

"Because as it turned out, I'm really good at it." Leonard shrugged once more. "I don't enjoy my work but I do it well and it's a necessary evil. There are aspects of my work that most people hate, for example when rich people have their ex-wives killed to save alimony or to prevent having to hand over half their assets but in my opinion, the other part of what we do equalizes it."

"Did you ever do one of those jobs?" Meryl asked.

"Yes, once, right at the beginning of my career, so to speak." Leonard nodded. "After that, I had to kill the husband as well because he tried to kill me to tie up loose ends. Since then, I took jobs that killed people who really deserve it and ignored the others."

"Given how much money you've given my daughter, I guess your job pays well." Meryl mused.

"That depends on the person who orders the mission." Leonard told her. "I once did a job that was listed for fifteen dollars and twenty-four cents."

"What?" Meryl couldn't stop herself from laughing at that number. "Who would offer that weird amount?"

"An eleven year old girl." Leonard replied, surprising her. "Somehow she had found her way to our message boards and she had a grievance because a, quote, 'bad man had killed her dog', end quote. I had my friend dive into that to find out what was going on and it turned out, there was a man who enjoyed torturing and killing the pets of the people living in his neighborhood."

"What did you do to him?"

"He was savaged by wild dogs which they never found." Leonard smiled evasively.

"Savaged how?" Meryl asked, not sure if she wanted to know.

"He doesn't have hands anymore. Or a penis. And only one foot left." Leonard shrugged. "Bitten off."

"Ouch!" Meryl gasped. "How can he live without a penis? How does he pee?"

"Oh, as far as I know, they surgically attached a small hose for that."

"Yikes!"

"I also had a message sent to the girl to keep her money." Leonard added. "And to forget how she got on the board."

"Alright, done." Penny said proudly, now fully dressed with fresh underwear and fresh clothes.

"Why don't you two go out for breakfast?" Mery suggested.

"Hey, good idea." Penny smiled and turned to Leonard. "You in?"

"I'm game if you drive." he nodded.

"Certainly." Penny giggled and grabbed the keys. "Come on!"

"Wow, she must be hungry." Leonard chuckled.

"I doubt she wants you to hurry because she wants to get food." Meryl winked and watched them leave.

"So, what type of breakfast guy are you?" she asked as she started driving. "Bacon and eggs or more towards waffles?"

"Not what you want to hear, but I rarely care." he shrugged.

"What kind of breakfasts do these hotels offer that are geared towards you?"

"That depends on the location." he said. "The best I had was in Prague. Banana bread with peanut butter, banana slices, pomegranate, walnuts and maple syrup."

"That sounds... weird." Penny admitted. "Never thought about that. What was your worst?"

"Some gruel I think they added bugs into for protein."

"Ew!" she made a grossed face. "Where?"

"Colombian jungle." he chuckled. "Had to eat something."

"What were you doing in the Colombian jungle?" she wanted to know.

"Hunting."

"What, some animal?" she wondered.

"So to speak." he nodded. "A particularly savage Farc rebel cell. They had slaughtered an entire village because the people refused to support them. They took some of the young women and girls as their personal slaves and toys, killed everyone else."

"Oh my god!" she whispered in shock. "How many rebels?"

"Eighty-four."

"Wait, you're telling me that you killed eighty-four people by yourself?" Penny was disbelieving. "Who were, I assume, heavily armed?"

"No, there were five of us." he shook his head, his gaze forward in his remembrance.

"How did they die?" she asked, not sure if she even wanted to know.

"Violently." he sighed. "And slowly."

"Not your usual way, I guess?"

"No." he confirmed. "But when we saw the dead villagers... especially the mothers clutching their babies who were killed as well... we snapped. We searched for the cell, for four days and nights, found them and made a plan. When they went to sleep, we killed the guards, freed the captives and then proceeded to paralyze the rest of the rebels with neurotoxin."

"And then what?"

"We cut off their hands and feet, cauterized the stumps so they wouldn't bleed out, bound their bodies to logs and then released a swarm of army ants." he said quietly. "Their screams could be heard for three days as they were eaten by the ants and whatever animal was lured in by the smell of blood and charred flesh. We had also hung a sign close by, telling everyone what we did it as a warning to other rebels."

"Um... we're here." she said, stopping at the diner she had driven them to.

"Lets eat." he smiled and got out of the car.

"I kinda lost my appetite a bit." she squirmed but got out anyway.

She thought about what he told her and her idea to learn it as well. From what she'd heard, she knew that this particular strategy wasn't Leonard's usual way of taking out his targets but hearing what they had found made her wonder how she would react if she ever had a similar job and found the victims of the target or targets and if they included babies. She'd probably want to make these people hurt as well. She followed him into the diner where Leonard had already gotten a table of two. She sat down across from him and smiled at him as a waitress approached them.

"Good morning." she greeted them. "Do you need menus or do you know what you want?"

"I'll have a grand slam number two, with extra bacon, extra eggs and a side of hash browns and a large cup of hot chocolate without whipped cream." Leonard ordered after looking at the menu boards behind the bar.

"I'll take the crepe special number three." Penny chose. "And a large coffee."

"You take cream in your coffee?"

"No, just sugar." Penny shook her head.

"Coming right up." the waitress said and left them alone.

"What's crepe special number three?" Leonard asked her.

"Over there." she pointed to the choices on the wall. "It's a large crepe with cheese, two sausages, two cut tomatoes, bacon and scrambled eggs. They roll it up and you can eat it."

"Interesting." he said.

"Seriously, do you always eat that much food for breakfast?" she wondered about his order.

"Only if I'm not on a job. On free days like today, I eat that much to get fuel into my body for my training later." he explained.

"Why not on jobs?"

"Given what I do, I need to eat light." he told her. "The last thing you want is throwing up because you exerted yourself after a big meal."

"How much training can you do with your injuries?" she wanted to know. "And how much do you train in general?"

"I can do some things even impaired, but not my usual." he shrugged. "Not to mention that I'm not in my home with my private gym where I would have a three hour training routine."

"You have your own gym?" she was surprised, seeing him look around as if gauging if anyone was listening.

"I gave you five million dollars, you shouldn't be shocked that I have my own gym." he said quietly.

"Well, when you put it like that." she chuckled, feeling a bit stupid.

"There you go." the waitress announced, putting the plates down. "Enjoy your meal."

"Thank you." Leonard nodded at her and began eating, looking at Penny's meal. "How do they get the cheese on the crepe like that?"

"They spread grated cheese out on it, use a blowtorch to heat it so it melts against the crepe, then they put the sausages, tomatoes and bacon on it and then they wrap it." she explained her meal before grabbing it and taking her first bite.

"So, you're eating it like a burrito." Leonard chuckled, while Penny gobbled down her food. "It looks as if you're eating an octopus."

"What?" she mumbled, her mouth full and looked down at her food where the two sausages were sticking out the bottom before continuing to eat.

"Is it weird for me to say that seeing you eat like this, I want to take you right here on this table?" Leonard laughed.

"What, me eating like a pig turns you on?" she grinned.

"Kinda, yeah." he admitted. "It's refreshing that a beautiful woman doesn't care how she looks when eating."

"Bad experience?"

"Yeah, some." he nodded. "I had a dinner during a job with some rich people and boy, was that a dull affair."

"Do tell." she giggled.

"The women were all eating salad and they did that in such paltry forkfuls that I thought their salads would wither before they finished it. The men had all some form of meat but ate around it." he told her. "And when I cut a part of my steak and ate it, they looked at me as if I had grown two heads."

"Why?" she wondered. "It was a dinner, right?"

"I think the hostess was a vegan and didn't like anyone that ate meat. That's why the men only ate around it." he replied. "Why they had meat on the plates in the first place, I really don't know."

"Was she your target?"

"No, one of her other guests."

"How did you... you know?"

"Garlic." he winked.

"What, was he a vampire?" she laughed.

"No, allergic. Some garlic injected into the hot sauce he liked to use on his chicken wings and replacing the contents of his epipen with water and he... was done quickly." he told her, mindful of the people around them.

"You know, I never knew there were so many ways to... you know."

"You'd be surprised." he winked at her and finished his food.

"Do you drink coffee?" Penny looked at his hot chocolate.

"I never liked the taste." he said. "I drink it if there's nothing else but I try to drink tea or hot chocolate or juice or water."

"Given how little you seem to sleep, I'd have thought you drank that by the gallon each day." she chuckled.

"No, I conditioned my body to be fine with four hours of sleep at night. More than that is luxury." he told her. "And there's a reason for not drinking too much coffee."

"And that is?"

"If you have a few days without it, you get bad headaches."

"That's true." she conceded and emptied her cup, putting it on the empty plate. "Done."

"Me too." he nodded and mentioned for the waitress to come by.

"You guys done?" the waitress asked her mandatory question. "Need something else?"

"The check, please." Leonard smiled at her.

"Coming right up." the waitress smiled at them and left with the empty plates, returning with the bill two minutes later. "There you go."

"Thank you." Leonard said and handed her a couple of bills, Penny knowing that they included a gracious tip.

"You folks have a nice day." the waitress suddenly became even more friendly than she already had been.

"You too." Leonard smiled at her and they left the diner. "We need to go back to my hotel."

"Already tired of bunking with my family?" she joked but felt trepidation.

"No, but I need some more things and my room lease runs out today as well." he explained.

"Sure."

They got into the truck and Penny began driving again. She thought about how to approach her desire to go with him and while she was feeling that he had warmed up to the idea, she still had no clue as to how to ask him properly and also, how it would even work. Would he even have the time to properly train her, given what he did for a living and how it apparently moved him around the world? Her train of thought was stopped when they reached the hotel, Leonard getting out and Penny following him.

"Ah, Mister Hofstadter." the receptionist greeted him, surprising Penny since she hadn't even known his last name before now. "We thought something might have happened to you."

"No, everything's fine." Leonard smiled at the man.

"We heard of the... unfortunate event that happened." the man hinted at the explosion and the subsequent events.

"Yes, that was... unexpected." Leonard admitted.

"Will you need the room for longer?"

"Yes, one more day at least." Leonard nodded, pushing one of the gold coins he had produced from somewhere to the man who took it and put it into his pocket.

"Then I hope you continue to enjoy your stay." the man said and eyed Penny, and she could see that he remembered her. "Miss."

"Thank you." Penny said, unsure what to say.

They rode the elevator up in silence, exiting on the sixth floor and walking to room twelve. Leonard unlocked the door and both went in, Penny staying in the middle of the room while Leonard discarded his borrowed clothes, grabbing some fresh clothes from his own luggage and donning it. He opened one of his suitcases and unlocked the secret bottom, revealing a row of knifes and more of those coins he uses to pay for things, taking out a small bag and producing an ointment that he rubbed on the wound.

"Leonard?" she spoke up, deciding that this was the best chance.

"Yes?" he looked at her and stood up.

"I want to stay with you." she said as he closed in on her.

"I know." he nodded.

"I want to learn what you do." she added.

"I know." he sighed as he reached her.

"Will you teach me?" she asked, feeling heat going into her abdomen from his close proximity.

"No." he shook his head and her heart sunk. "But I will take you to the man who taught me how to fight and kill."

"You will?" she gasped, her heart leaping back up. "But why won't you do it?"

"Because he can teach better than I can and he also won't have an emotional attachment to you, so he will be unbiased." he told her. "And he will make sure that you are in fact capable of actually killing a person. Saying you can and really doing it are two different things."

"I did shoot the guy who attacked you." she argued.

"Not in cold blood." he retorted. "You were in the heat of the moment and I would like to believe you did it because you cared for me."

"I do care for you." she confirmed, putting her arms around his neck.

"And I care for you and that's why I can't train you." he said.

"I understand." she nodded. "I will prove to you that I have what it takes."

"We will see." he accepted and let her kiss him.

Penny smiled into the kiss when Leonard picked her up and carried her to the bed.

* * *

**Alright, finished with that one. Hope you enjoyed :D**

**Review please :)**


	8. Chapter 8

**Managed to finish this one right before going to bed because of my early shift tomorrow. So if you find grammar errors, ignore them ;)**

**Enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.**

**Disclaimer2: I'm again using the Penny family members that TerribleWaitress created, simply because I'm used to it :D**

* * *

"Good afternoon." Penny smiled at Leonard as she came out of the bathroom, still naked, and finding him sitting on the bed, leaning against the headboard and working on his laptop.

"Hey." Leonard smiled back and did a double take at her, seeing her leaning against the door frame.

"What?" she asked.

"Did you shave?" he pointed to her crotch.

"Yeah." she nodded and climbed in the bed, sitting up next to him.

"Why?"

"I've done it ever since I was fifteen." she shrugged. "After you rescued me from Kurt, I hadn't bothered to do it but boy, did it itch sometimes."

"Did your clients prefer it?" he asked, seeing her wince. "Sorry, didn't want to dredge up those memories."

"No, it's okay." she sighed. "Some did. Some even wanted the role play of me dressing up as a schoolgirl. Mostly the Asians."

"Never understood that fetish." Leonard commented. "As if they're acting out fantasies to have sex with underage girls."

"Yeah, but quite frankly, in that case it's good that they're using hookers or call girls for that fantasy as opposed to finding an actual school girl."

"Agreed." Leonard nodded. "I guess if they did that, people like me would have a lot more jobs."

"Did you ever kill one?" she asked.

"No, but I sent three to jail." he shook his head. "Which is worse for them than death."

"How so?"

"Because there's a hierarchy even among prisoners." he explained. "And the lowest of the low, the bottom rung of the ladder, are the child molesters. These guys are in the highest danger of being severely beaten up or killed. As far as I know, every other group in prison hates these guys, be it white nationalists, blacks, people from organized crime or whatever."

"Huh, I never knew that." she admitted. "Is this stuff I'll learn in my training?"

"Yes." Leonard nodded.

"How much will I have to learn?" she wondered.

"Ever seen one of those encyclopedia series where there's a thick book or even more for every letter of the alphabet?" he looked at her.

"Yeah." she nodded, wondering where he was going.

"Imagine three times that." he shrugged.

"Oh god." she groaned and looked at this laptop screen. "What are you doing?"

"Reading the message boards to see what my killing of Caspar has done." he told her.

"And?"

"So far, everyone is in agreement that what I did was necessary, even those who agreed with Caspar in the past." he said. "Though those will probably be afraid they'll share his fate if they push too hard."

"I think this is the stuff I will understand the least." she admitted. "By the way, I always wanted to ask, what did your friend do with the surveillance video of us coming out of the alley?"

"Take a look." he said and started a video, pushing the laptop to the right so she could see the screen.

"Holy crap." she gasped when she saw a group of bikers enter the field of vision, stop their bikes, then enter the alley behind Steve and his friends and come back out later to hop on their bikes and leave again. "We're not even in the video at all anymore."

"Of course not, would be hard to explain where the blond went that the five guys pushed into the alley, wouldn't it, especially since the alley has no other exit?"

"Right." she nodded, feeling stupid.

"Why did the guy try to rape you in the first place?" Leonard asked her. "I saw you talk to him in the mall court."

"He used to be a friend of Kurt and we went to the same high school." Penny sighed. "For some reason, he thought I killed him. But why he then tried to rape me as punishment, I really don't know."

"I reckon that his reasoning was just pretend, nobody who wants to take revenge for a dead friend chooses rape to do it." Leonard said. "Did he want to have sex with you back in school?"

"Now that you mention it, he might have." she nodded. "I never really thought about him like that though."

"Alright." Leonard accepted that.

"What is that system you're using?" Penny asked, seeing the weird desktop layout on the screen.

"It's a special one programmed by a friend of mine." Leonard told her. "Has multiple applications that I need and it never leaves a trace on any machine I use it on."

"Will I get one too?" she smiled at him.

"If you finish your training, you will." Leonard nodded. "You will get your own flash stick with programs that are suited to fulfill your needs."

"Well, there's one need I have that you could fulfill, I think." she smiled.

"What?" he asked, clearly not realizing what she meant.

"Oh, nothing with the computer." she giggled and swung her leg over his abdomen, getting between him and his laptop.

"Oh, I see." he smiled and put his hands on her breasts before replacing his left one with his lips, making her hiss as his lips surrounded her nipple.

"Mh, that feels nice." she sighed in content but before it could go any further, his cellphone rang.

"Yes?" Leonard spoke into the receiver after accepting the call. "What?... Wait, I'm going to put you on speaker so I can use my laptop."

"Alright." she heard another male voice as Leonard pushed her off of him and mentioned for her to be quiet.

"Okay, go." Leonard prompted the caller.

"I've sent you some files." the man said. "Apparently, the local cops in Omaha are investigating the bombing and shooting at the Rose club."

"Any chance of them connecting any of it to me?" Leonard asked.

"The problem is, I couldn't find any surveillance data." the man told him. "But that doesn't mean it's not there, it could have been on a closed network and survived the bombing."

"Shit." Leonard grumbled and looked at Penny. "Howard, I need you to do something."

"Shoot." Howard said, Penny finally learning who Leonard was speaking to.

"I need you to create a female FBI persona and order a badge made that I can pick up as soon as possible."

"From the clothes shop?" Howard asked.

"Yes." Leonard confirmed.

"Well, I need a face to go with the ID."

"Coming right up." Leonard said and muted the phone, so Howard wouldn't hear. "Penny, put on my white shirt and my suit jacket."

"Okay." Penny nodded, not quite knowing what was going on but complying anyway, standing in the room without any lower apparel but with his shirt and jacket on.

"Now stand in front of that white wall and make a neutral face." Leonard told her and she followed his guidance, looking at him without a smile or smirk or scowl. "Perfect."

"Is she the blond you saved in the alley that wants to become one of us?" Howard asked, having heard the last part Leonard said.

"Yes." Leonard replied. "Sending picture now."

"Alright, the ID is quickly done, you can pick it and the badge up at the store in fifteen minutes." Howard said and Penny could hear the clicking of keys on a keyboard.

"But will that ID and badge hold up?" Penny asked worried. "Impersonating an officer of the law is a crime, right?"

"Darling, those IDs are more than what you can buy from street vendors." she could hear Howard's chuckle. "You will have a real FBI identification and if someone checks your badge number with the FBI, it will have a valid result."

"But won't other agents wonder who we are?" she still wasn't sure about that.

"That's why it's IDs for special agents." Leonard told her. "They are the ones who get sent out all over the country as opposed to agents who are based in a local office other than the Washington DC headquarters, where we'd never use these personas."

"Alright, the ID is done and I'll use my backdoor to the FBI servers to add it to the ones I already placed there." Howard proclaimed. "You can pick it up at the store in fifteen minutes, they should be done printing it by then."

"And the badge?" Leonard asked.

"They still have some, so no need to make one." Howard said. "Oh, I've sent you an email with all the documents that I've found on the Rose Club cloud storage. It's quite the stuff."

"Howard, I said it before and I'll say it again and again, you are way too good." Leonard laughed. "Thanks man."

"Just remember to put some extra coins into the slot the next time you're here." Howard chuckled.

"I don't think your wife would like it if I put coins into her cleavage." Leonard deadpanned.

"Not that slot you pervert!" Howard said almost immediately. "She'd kill me."

"And she knows sooo many ways to do it." Leonard laughed again. "Alright, files finished downloading. I'll peruse them and see what I can do with it."

"Good luck." Howard said and ended the call.

"What was that about?" Penny asked. "Are we really going to impersonate FBI agents?"

"Yes, we'll have to."

"Why?"

"Because the last thing you want is the cops finding surveillance tapes of me crashing through the window and you and your sister being in the middle of a firefight."

"Shit, you're right." Penny realized. "I should get dressed."

"Yes, you should." Leonard nodded absently, his concentration already on the files. "Wow, this is gold."

"What are you going to do with it?" she wanted to know as she put on her slip and bra.

"Send it to the store to have it printed and packed into FBI file folders." Leonard said, writing the email with his order before shutting down the laptop and getting up as well. "And for the record, I really wanted to do what you had planned before the call."

"Well, it's not as if we won't have more chances." Penny winked at him as she put on her pants while Leonard quickly got dressed as well, in, to her surprise, quite leisurely clothing.

"Lets go." Leonard said after they both had finished.

"I hope we don't have too much of that we-just-had-sex smell on us." Penny chuckled as they rode the elevator down to the lobby.

"Nobody will be so blunt as to tell us if we do." Leonard said and led her outside where a car was waiting for them.

"An SUV?" Penny was surprised, seeing a different kind of vehicle compared to the one she was brought home with as Leonard gave the man who stood next to it a gold coin.

"Yes, the FBI uses those as official cars." Leonard nodded, getting behind the wheel. "Get in."

She got into the passenger seat and Leonard started driving. The car even had the flashing lights under the front window, making her wonder how much reach this organization Leonard was part of had. Not wanting to draw any attention though, Leonard didn't use it, sticking to the speed limit until they had reached the store where he had bought her the dress that eternity that was only a few days ago.

"Welcome." the clerk greeted them, clearly remembering them, the woman sitting at the bar also coming to attention. "We have your order ready."

"Thank you." Leonard said, receiving an envelope from which he produced the FBI ID and badge, giving it to Penny.

"Vanessa Riley." Penny read her fake name. "Wow, I look so much authority."

"That sentence didn't make sense." Leonard chuckled and turned back to the clerk. "We also need clothing, one business suit for me and a pantsuit for her. Nothing too high quality."

"Of course." the clerk nodded and mentioned for them to follow into the room where Leonard had gone the last time.

"Jesus!" Penny gasped when the door closed and the man pulled a certain book, making the back wall open up to reveal a room full of computers and communication equipment, also weapons and other things.

"Take what you need." the clerk said. "Your documents are over there."

"Thank you." Leonard nodded and gave him two of the gold coins.

"What now?" Penny asked.

"Take one of those pantsuits and put it on." Leonard told her and grabbed a random dark suit, taking off his clothes to put it on.

"Oh, so we're changing in here." Penny realized and did the same, taking a minute to put her disguise on. "Wow, I look ridiculous."

"You're going to have to bear with it." Leonard shrugged. "Female FBI agents on duty don't walk around in jeans shorts and tank tops, no matter how pretty they are."

"I understand." she nodded. "So, how will this go down?"

"I will do the talking." Leonard said as he packed their clothes into a bag. "Nothing personal but this is the first time for you doing this and it might not be a good idea to talk to cops."

"I agree." she said. "I always wanted to be an actress, so this might be good to see if I could have pulled it off."

"Lets go." Leonard said and both left the room, the fake wall closing down again before the door unlocked.

They got back into car and Leonard drove them through the city towards whatever police precinct was on the case. She got more and more nervous as they went on, given that she was about to commit a crime, inside a police building no less. Leonard parked the car in one of the official parking spot and got out, Penny doing the same and following him into the building, carrying the briefcase with the files as befitting of a junior agent.

"Here we are." Leonard said. "You ready?"

"Yes." Penny nodded. "How will this go?"

"I'll do the talking and when I snip my fingers, you hand me the folders in the briefcase."

"Alright." she smiled and mentally steeled herself.

"Get ready to show your badge." he whispered to her as they neared the reception desk.

"Can I help you folks?" the officer in charge asked them.

"Yes, I'm Special Agent Breslau, this is Special Agent Riley." Leonard introduced them, holding up his ID, Penny doing the same.

"What can I do for you?"

"You could point us to your captain's office." Leonard said, using the perfect inflection of boredom and superiority in his voice.

"Certainly, sir." the man nodded and pointed to a double-door to their left. "Through there, at the end of the bullpen, can't miss it."

"Thank you." Leonard nodded and started walking.

"Man, that was good." Penny whispered to him.

"Try not to look so nervous." Leonard cautioned her as he knocked on the door of the office, where the large print word Captain denoted its occupant.

"Yes, come in." the man called out and Leonard entered, Penny right behind him. "Can I help you?"

"Captain Miller, I'm Agent Breslau, this is Agent Riley." Leonard introduced them again, holding up his badge, Penny not doing it this time. "We understand your precinct is investigating the Rose Club bombing."

"We are, yes." Miller nodded. "What's the FBI's interest in it?"

"We're taking over the case." Leonard proclaimed. "Could you get the investigating detectives in here?"

"Sure." the captain nodded and got up, opening his office door and calling out for two men who entered the office. "These are detectives Simpson and Markovsky."

"What's this about, captain?" Simpson wanted to know.

"These are agents Breslau and Riley, and they're taking over the Rose Club case." Miller told them.

"Okay, why?" Markovsky asked. "What's he FBI's interest in a local club bombing?"

"Armando Castillo, the owner, has been involved in drug distribution ever since he took over the club..."

"We know, but we could never prove it." Simpson interjected.

"However, for the last few months, his business also ventured into human trafficking, hence the case now being under the purview of the FBI." Leonard finished. "We want you to hand over everything you might have, documents, surveillance tapes and so on."

"Hang on, I don't approve of having to let a possible bomber off the hook." Markovsky threw in.

"We believe that the bombing is the result of the business expansion that Mister Castillo undertook, that's why it's also under our purview." Leonard told him.

"Fine." Markovsky rolled his eyes.

"However, since we realize that this may look like a bad parent taking a child's toy away, we have something for you to sink your teeth in." Leonard smiled, snipping his finger, giving Penny her cue, and she handed him the two folders they had brought.

"In here is the result of our investigation so far into Mister Castillo's illegal businesses." Leonard proclaimed and laid the two folders out, one of then taken by the captain, the other by one of the detectives. "One has all the information we have about Mister Castillo's drug enterprise, local suppliers, street traders and so on, the other has the information about the people who snatched the girls he trafficked in from the street of this city and it's surroundings. Basically everything that falls into the local jurisdiction."

"The human trafficking part is pretty thin." detective Simpson said.

"Because the ring extends far beyond this town, the country even." Leonard explained. "We are working with our counterparts in Europe to dismantle the ring."

"Alright." the captain nodded. "Detectives, hand over everything you have."

"We will review your documents and collected evidence and take what is under our jurisdiction." Leonard said, standing up.

They walked into a conference room and waited for the detectives and some officers to carry the boxes into the room, waiting until they had left before opening the first box. Leonard rifled through the documents and took out several, leaving those who weren't in any way showing Leonard's or Caspar's involvement in the boxes while taking the rest.

"So?" Penny asked.

"Not that much about me, and luckily, no surveillance tapes have survived the explosion." Leonard told her.

"How can you read that fast?" she wondered.

"Speed-reading." he shrugged. "It's one of the things you need to learn along with developing a good memory."

"I'll do my best." she nodded, perusing some of the documents herself. "What about this?"

"What does it say?"

"It's about the explosive used." she told him, handing him the document.

"We'll take that too." he nodded. "While Caspar may have built the bomb himself using over the counter chemicals, I don't want to risk the chance that he might have hired some local bomb maker and the police getting to him or her."

After another hour, Leonard finished with the last box, putting the files they'd leave back into them while Penny stuffed the files they would take with them into the briefcase. Leonard called a few uniformed officers in to take the boxes back to the evidence locker and began walking towards the exit, when one of the detectives called him over, the captain standing behind them.

"Yes?" Leonard looked at them.

"Just wanted to thank you for these." Simpson pointed to the two folders Leonard had given them. "We'll be able to close several open cases now."

"You're welcome." Leonard nodded.

"Are you done?" Miller wanted to know.

"Yes." Leonard confirmed. "The bureau thanks you for your cooperation."

"Not that you've given us much choice." the captain scoffed. "But still, thanks for the files."

Without further words, Leonard and Penny left the building and got back into the car, Leonard driving back to the hotel. He handed the car keys back to the same valet that had provided it to him and they entered the hotel, Leonard leading her back to the elevator and back to his room. He opened the bag and took out their regular clothes, handing Penny her jeans shorts and shirt while he changed back into his leisurely clothing.

"So, should we..." she smiled, pointing to the bed.

"No, you need to say goodbye to your parents, because you and I have a plane to catch." he told her as he packed his stuff together.

"Plane to catch?" she gasped. "Where are we going?"

"I thought you wanted to learn what I do?" he looked at her.

"I do, it's just... it's so sudden."

"How long did you think I would be staying here?" he asked rhetorically.

"I guess." she had to admit and waited for him to finish packing, which took a surprisingly short time, after which he led her out of the room and down to the lobby again.

"I hope your stay was acceptable, despite the... unforeseen events." he man behind the reception desk said.

"It was fine." Leonard smiled. "Until next time."

"What do I need?" she asked as they drove back to her parents' farm. "I mean, in terms of clothing and so on."

"Whatever you need. Gym clothes definitely. Some warm clothes. You can do laundry where you'll go." Leonard advised. "And everything else you might need."

"Penny, you're back." Meryl said as they walked into the house after a thirty minute drive.

"Yes, to pack." Penny nodded.

"I see." Meryl sighed, looking at Leonard who could only shrug.

"Be right back." Penny said and went upstairs.

"So, this is it, huh?" Meryl addressed Leonard.

"Yes." Leonard nodded. "I tried everything I could to dissuade her but she wouldn't budge."

"I know." Meryl knew her daughter. "Her stubbornness is the reason she went to L.A. with Kurt in the first place. Will we see her again?"

"Not for a while." Leonard shook his head. "Where she's going, there aren't vacation days."

"Will she be safe?"

"Nobody will harm her." Leonard promised. "She will feel pain though, but that's part of the training."

"Oh, hey Leonard." Wyatt greeted him as he came into the house. "Where's Penny?"

"She's upstairs." Meryl looked at her husband. "Packing."

"So she's really doing it?" Wyatt sighed. "I had hopes that Bridget was wrong."

"Me too." Leonard agreed with Wyatt. "But she will be well taken care of."

"For how long?"

"For as long it takes." Leonard shrugged. "A minimum of six months, but expect nine or even a year. It's not in my hands to decide if she's ready."

"And you trust this trainer?" Wyatt asked.

"With my life." Leonard nodded.

"Well, I had hoped things would turn out differently." Wyatt said and to Leonard's surprise, the larger man hugged him. "But at least I know that my little slugger is safe."

"She's as safe as anyone can be." Leonard confirmed and was surprised again when Meryl hugged him as well.

"Despite what you do, you are a good man." Meryl told him. "And you will be good for our little girl."

"Hey daddy." Penny said as she came down the stairs, several bags and two suitcases with her. "Did they tell you?"

"Yes." Wyatt nodded and went to hug Penny before picking up some of her bags. "Is there any chance I can talk you out of it?"

"I really think this is what I'm meant to do, dad." Penny shook her head and went to hug her mom while Leonard grabbed her luggage and put it into the cab he had called before they had left the hotel. "Bye mom, I'm gonna miss you guys so much."

After a few more minutes of teary goodbye, Penny joined Leonard in the cab. As it drove off, she waved at her parents for as long as they were visible, almost telling the driver to stop so she could go back but her determination won over. The cab drove them to Eppley airfield where they got out. Leonard and Penny walked into the building but instead of going to the ticket counter, he led her to a side exit.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"To the plane." he replied.

"But won't we have to buy tickets first?"

"No, I chartered one." he told her, leading her to a small plane waiting on the tarmac.

"Wow, that's... kinds swank."

"The last thing I need is my bags going through an x-ray machine." he pointed out.

"Oh, yeah, that would lead to a bit of questioning, I guess." she had to admit as they boarded the small plane.

"Good afternoon, Mister Smith. Mam." the pilots greeted Leonard and Penny. "Are you ready to lift off?"

"Yes." Leonard nodded and the pilots went into the cockpit for their final flight checks, having done everything before Leonard arrived.

"Are they part of the organization too?" she asked him as the plane rolled to the runway.

"No, they're simply pilots hired to fly this plane." he shook his head. "As I said, my job has made me quite wealthy."

"Okay." Penny nodded.

"You should get some sleep." Leonard advised her after they were in the air. "It will be an eight hour flight."

"Where are we going anyway?" she wanted to know, settling into the chair.

"Vermont." he told her and closed his eyes. "North of Newport, close to the Canadian border."

"Wow, good thing you told me to pack some warm clothes." she almost shivered at the thought of the temperatures up there.

As Penny closed her eyes, Leonard typed a message into his phone, ordering a car to wait for him at the airport at the time they'd be landing there. After that was done, he also closed his eyes to catch a few hours of sleep. Eight hours later, the sky already dark, the pilots woke them up through the intercom, telling them to fasten their seat belts and prepare for landing.

After touching down and rolling to their designated spot, they exited the plane, Leonard shaking the hands of the pilots and handing them a few bills as a tip. He led Penny out of the airport building, and Penny saw the car waiting for them, a man dressed in a dark suit waiting next to it. Leonard handed the man money as well and received the keys, opening the trunk for Penny to deposit her luggage in. He got behind the wheel and started driving, the late hour making it possible for them to go quite fast.

"Now, the man you're going to meet will teach you how to fight and how to kill." Leonard told her after a few minutes driving. "And he will evaluate if you're capable of actually doing the job."

"Something I need to watch out for?" she asked, nervousness rising inside her.

"Always be honest, don't act like you know more than he does." Leonard advised. "And more importantly, always be respectful. If you aren't, he will kick the shit out of you."

"Got it." she chuckled.

"I'm not kidding here!" Leonard grabbed her arm to show how serious he was. "He will really beat you up until you crap your pants."

"So what would happen if I didn't pass this man's tests?" she wanted to know.

"He will evaluate you to see if you have talents that benefit the other parts of our trade." Leonard replied. "You know, information gathering, weapon design or building, that stuff."

"And if I don't?"

"He will kill you." Leonard said matter-of-fact.

"You're kidding!" she gasped, but knew he wasn't.

"No." he confirmed her fears. "Our business survives because of its secrecy. And having someone outside the business know about the ways we do things is too much of a danger."

"But you told me and my parents lots of things." she argued.

"Just the basics, nothing too concrete." he pointed out. "Not to mention that I haven't taught you any techniques."

"Okay." Penny said, determined not to back down. "Lets do this."

"Alright." Leonard accepted, having hoped that she would back down in the face of possible death.

They got out of the car and walked towards the gate. Leonard rang the bell and they waited until they heard rustling from the speaker before the gate buzzer chimed, indicating the invitation and causing Leonard to push open the gate, letting Penny through before closing it again. He walked in front of her towards the house, Penny looking around at the lush greenery around them, the perfectly landscaped walkway and seeing several ponds on the property. When they got near to the house, the door opened and an older man came out, wearing leisurely clothing and smiling at them.

"Leonard." the older man greeted him, Penny just waiting for him to introduce her and was surprised when the two embraced. "I heard about the bomb. I'm so glad you're okay but you could have called."

"My phone got damaged in the explosion and I don't have your number in my replacement." Leonard explained. "It's good to see you, dad."

* * *

**Now, who expected that :D**

**Okay, I got good news and bad. The good news is, I finished this chapter ^^ The bad news is that after my shift is over tomorrow, I have a four day weekend, so no writing for me ;)**

**Still, review please :)**


	9. Chapter 9

**Well, my long weekend is over and it's back to work. But, today I decided to sit down and hammer this down. Remember, Cliff Hanger always lurks in the shadows, eager to disturb the peace and quiet.**

**Enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.**

* * *

"Dad?" Penny gasped and looked at the older man more closely in the dim light of the walkway lamps, finally seeing the similarities, though his dad had a thick beard and a receding hair line.

"Yes, this is my father." Leonard nodded. "Dad, this is Penny."

"Welcome, my name is Albert." Albert shook her hand. "You're the first woman in almost twenty years that Leonard has brought home."

"Dad." Leonard whined, his hand over his face. "This isn't a social call, actually."

"Oh?" Albert looked at her. "Are you sure about this, young lady?"

"Yes, I am." Penny nodded resolutely.

"Why?" Albert asked.

"Because I've seen the good Leonard does and I feel like this is what I'm meant to do." Penny told him sincerely.

"Okay." Albert nodded after a few seconds of looking at her.

"Just like that?" Penny was surprised.

"Yes, you are sincere in your statement." Albert said. "If you hadn't been, I'd have sent you away."

"Okay... good." Penny nodded, still a little bowled over.

"Let me show you to your room." Albert said and turned around, making Penny follow with all her luggage, Leonard helping her with some.

He led her into the house and upstairs. Penny noticed the pictures on the wall of people she was sure were his family but she also felt a kind of sadness permeating the air, as if something horrible had happened. Once up the stairs, he turned right and stopped at a door on the right side of he hallway, opening it to reveal a relatively small, but comfortable looking room, a bed and some furniture rounding it out.

"This will be your room for the foreseeable future." Albert said. "The bathroom is at the end of the hall, this will be completely yours, which means you're responsible for keeping it clean. Understood?"

"Yes, sir." Penny nodded.

"No need to call me sir, Albert is fine." Albert smiled at her. "Now tell me, what is twenty-four minus eight?"

"Uh, sixteen?" Penny was confused with that question.

"Exactly." Albert nodded. "For sixteen hours every day, you belong to me. Your days will be filled with training and eating the regular meals. The other eight hours are yours to spend however you want."

"Though I can tell you from experience, the only thing on your mind will be getting a shower or bath and then sleep." Leonard chuckled.

"Shut up, you." Albert pointed at his son, a smile on his face. "Now, Penny, you get comfortable in here, get a shower and then some sleep. Bed sheets are in the cabinet on the left. Since it's quite late already, I will give you an introduction to what we'll do for the next few months in the morning."

"Yes, Albert." Penny nodded, wanting to make a good impression.

"Leonard, you come with me, I need to talk to you." Albert ordered.

"Yes, dad." Leonard nodded and looked at Penny. "Sweet dreams."

With a sigh, Penny looked around and grabbed some some bed sheets out of the cabinet that Albert had pointed to to make the bed.

"Leonard, how are you?" Albert asked his son when they were back downstairs.

"Fine." Leonard shrugged. "The bomb was a surprise."

"You got hit?"

"Yes, hip and shoulder." Leonard nodded, lifting his shirt so Albert could look at the scar.

"That doesn't look like the work of a doctor." Albert commented.

"No, I did that." Leonard said and pointed to the ceiling. "After her mother had pulled the metal splinter from my body."

"I see." Albert nodded. "So, what's the story?"

"I met her in Los Angeles." Leonard recounted. "I needed a cover because I had to use a hotel's honeymoon suite for surveillance."

"And how did you find her?"

"She was a hooker." Leonard shrugged. "Thrust into the life by her former boyfriend turned pimp, she was the first I saw, so I hired her. Had to spend a week with her so we got to know each other."

"And how much did you tell her?"

"Some." Leonard said. "Nothing too concrete though she figured out what I did pretty quick when she saw my gear."

"How did you know you could trust her with that knowledge?" Albert asked, not accusingly but truly curious.

"Gut feeling." Leonard shrugged again. "I could see that there was more to her than met the eye. She's also pretty observant."

"You care for her." Albert stated.

"Yes, I do." Leonard saw no reason to lie. "She saved my life, twice."

"How?"

"Once after the explosion, she and her sister picked me up and brought me to their home to take care of my wounds and then when Caspar tried to kill me again." Leonard told him. "She shot him when he was about to kill me."

"Caspar got the better of you?" Albert looked surprised.

"Hip and shoulder wound." Leonard gave Albert the same four word explanation he had given Howard.

"True." Albert had to accept. "So, what made you agree that she could learn what we do?"

"She's convincing and very stubborn." Leonard chuckled.

"Not to mention pretty." Albert smiled.

"That too." Leonard admitted. "Though that had no impact on my agreement to bring her here."

"Are you sleeping with her?"

"Yes, I do." Leonard nodded. "Though quite frankly, I have no idea if it goes any deeper."

"For her, it does." Albert pointed out. "And for you too, you're just not admitting it to yourself yet."

"Dad, what we do is dangerous." Leonard sighed. "You taught me how it could affect relationships."

"Son, remember why you went into this business?" Albert looked at him as he poured two glasses of very expensive scotch, handing Leonard one.

"Of course, I wanted revenge." Leonard nodded.

"Son, your mother and I may not have had the most loving relationship, and she had been quite distant to you as well." Albert said. "But when she, your siblings and the others died, all you wanted is to kill the people who took them from us."

"I know that, why are you telling me this?" Leonard wondered.

"Do you think Beverly didn't know what I was doing for a living?" Albert asked rhetorically. "She accepted it. So before you make any decision about Penny, you should take into account what she thinks about it. And the fact that she wants to become part of the business says a lot. The least of which, that she'd be able to take care of herself if someone ever came for you."

"Again." Leonard chuckled, referring to his encounter with Caspar. "You may be right, dad."

"Of course I'm right." Albert grinned. "I always am, I'm your dad."

"I remember that lesson." Leonard laughed and clinked his glass with Albert's, taking a sip.

"Did you tell her the consequences of not passing the trials?"

"Yes, I did." Leonard nodded. "She apparently doesn't care."

"Even the ultimate consequence if she doesn't find another role?"

"Yes." Leonard nodded once more.

"And are you fine with it?" Albert looked poignantly at him.

"No." Leonard finally shook his head. "I'd prefer you not kill her if she doesn't pass and has no other use for us."

"You trust her that much?"

"Yes."

"Then I won't." Albert stated. "But you will be responsible for anything that might happen."

"I understand." Leonard accepted.

"Now, I know that you probably want to go home and that Major and Tyson miss you terribly, but you should stay here tonight." Albert said.

"Dad, I live twelve miles away, it's not as if I would fall asleep at the wheel." Leonard chuckled.

"Not what I meant." Albert winked at him and pointed up.

"Dad?"

"Son, you won't see her for a few months, so don't you think you should get in one last romp?" Albert suggested.

"Jeez, dad!" Leonard gasped.

"Go, son!" Albert ordered.

"That will be fun." Leonard laughed as he got up. "Penny, my dad ordered me to have sex with you."

"You may not want to open up with that." Albert gave him a gentle slap on the arm. "Or mention it at all."

"I got it." Leonard shook his head in exasperation as Albert left for his bedroom.

"And tell her that breakfast is at eight, she should be up by then." Albert mentioned just before Leonard was at the stairs.

"Will do, dad." Leonard nodded and walked up the stairs, turning right and stopping at her door.

"Come in." Penny called out after Leonard had knocked. "Oh, hey."

"How are you settling in?" Leonard asked.

"It's okay." Penny smiled. "A bit smaller than my room in my parents' house but I don't complain, since I'm a guest here."

"Good, good." Leonard nodded, not quite knowing if he should ask her about sex at all, not wanting to appear too needy or have her see him as just wanting her for her body.

"Is there a special reason for you to be here?" Penny tried to suppress a smile, able to guess about why he was in the room.

"My dad ordered me to tell you that breakfast is tomorrow at eight." Leonard said. "If you're not there, you won't get any breakfast."

"He won't even let me have a snack?" Penny wondered.

"Unless you have it in your room and wolf it down before going down, no." Leonard shook his head. "He's very strict when it comes to time tables he sets and it's also a way for him to teach discipline."

"What can I look forward to tomorrow?"

"He'll tell you how your training will be structured, what you will do and so on." Leonard told her. "This twenty-four minus sixteen thing he did is true, for sixteen hours a day, he will own you."

"And how long will this training be?" she asked. "I mean, when will I be ready for the next step?"

"That's for him to decide." he replied. "He will evaluate your progress every day and once he thinks you're ready, he will give you your final test. If you pass, he'll call me and I'll pick you up and take you to the next trainer for the more theoretical things."

"What's the final test?"

"Again, that's for him to decide. And even if it was the same one I did, I wouldn't tell you."

"Okay." she accepted. "Was there anything else?"

"Well... uh... no, not really." he stammered, for some reason suddenly unsure of himself and moved to turn around for the door before feeling strong hands on the neck of his shoulder and getting pulled backwards and tripping against the bed, falling on it. "What the hell?"

"Seriously, Leonard, do you think I haven't realized why you came up here to tell me something your dad could have told me?" Penny grinned and moved towards him, running her hands over his legs towards his abdomen.

"Well, I didn't want to ask or presume." he shrugged. "I didn't want to give you the impression that I..."

"Leonard, shut up." she giggled and pulled down his pants and underwear.

Without much pause, she grabbed his manhood and took it into her mouth, feeling it harden inside her mouth, a tactic she used to use during her years of forced prostitution to get her clients off as fast as possible. For a moment, she had a flashback to that time before remembering that she was with someone else this time, someone who made her feel like a woman again and not like a piece of meat. Someone who would want to give her the same pleasure she was giving him.

She stopped for a moment to straighten her upper body in order to take her shirt off. Since she had already dressed for the night, she didn't have to take off a bra and she simply went back to what she was doing. While she blew him, she stood up, her body bent forward to keep him in her mouth and she pushed down her pajama bottoms. Before she could kneel down again, Leonard sat up and grabbed her by the hips, lifting her far enough that her legs left the floor and he pulled her around and over his head.

When his tongue got into contact with her folds, she gave a groaning squeal. Since he was the first and only man ever to do that with her, she had no idea if he was good, great or just average, but it felt like heaven to her. Unbeknownst to her, what Leonard was doing was also relatively new to him, having had only one real relationship beforehand when he was still sixteen. After that, he was thrown into his current life and every other woman he slept with after had been part of a job.

He had no idea if the job he was doing was good or not but the sounds Penny was making and the way she moved spurred him on to continue what he was doing. He grabbed her butt cheeks and spread them slightly, pushing his tongue deeper into her and was rewarded with a squeal, followed by a shaking of her entire body.

"Oh, this is heaven." she keened, releasing him and pressing her lower body harder down.

"Did that feel good?" Leonard grinned once she had calmed, the question both rhetorical since he felt her pleasure but also genuine since he was inexperienced in the way of foreplay.

"Oh yeah." she chuckled as she got up. "How's the hip?"

"A bit better." Leonard said, looking down at the stitches holding the skin together.

"Good." she giggled and swung her leg over him to mount him.

Still careful due to his wound, she slowly rode him, feeling empowered by the position. She was in control of speed and strength, using that control to either move forward and back or grind in position. Whenever she had done this position in the past during her bad years, it was on the wish or order of the client, not of her own volition.

But now it was she who decided, she who controlled and she who allowed him to turn her around or take her from behind if he desired to. And she knew that despite his strength, his control, he would never force her to do anything she didn't want.

And right now, she wanted to feel him.

She wanted him to wriggle under her, she wanted to hear his moans and groans of pleasure and above all, she wanted to feel the euphoric wave of an orgasm rushing through her body. She sped up her movement more and more, almost violently riding him, her hands on his, holding his arms down as she moved forcefully on him.

She panted harder and harder, hearing his groans but for Leonard, this wasn't quite the fun it seemed to be for her. In her ecstasy, she had apparently forgotten that he still labored with an injury and the only thing he could do right now was to press against her arms so the pressure on his hip was limited.

Penny got faster and faster and her moans more high-pitched as she neared her orgasm. Leonard had to work had to prevent his own, the feeling of her insides squeezing him hard to ignore even with the pain coming from his side. With a final yell, Penny collapsed on top of him, breathing hard as he unloaded into her.

"Fuck, that was amazing." she sighed as she rolled off of him to grab a tissue which she pushed between her legs.

"I agree." he said, not wanting to alert her as he took a tissue himself to press against his side where some blood was seeping from the reopened wound after some of the stitches had torn.

"Will you be here when I get up?" she wanted to know, even though she knew the answer.

"No." she denied, confirming her expectation. "From tomorrow onward, my presence would be a distraction for you."

"So you won't even visit?"

"Unless I need to see my dad, it's very unlikely." he told her.

"That sucks." she sighed and turned on her back, flipping the switch of the lamp on the nightstand and plunging the room into darkness.

"I know." he agreed and got up, walking around the bed and pressing a soft kiss onto her lips. "Goodbye Penny. Good luck with your training."

"Thank you." she smiled into the dark room as she watched his silhouette moving towards the door and leave the room after he had put on his pants and took his shirt into his hands.

"Good night, Penny." Leonard said as he stood under the door frame. "Sleep well."

"I wish you could stay." she whispered after he had gone and tried to get some sleep, her insides churning from the anticipation of what was to come.

Meanwhile, Leonard was walking downstairs, looking down at his hip which was bleeding freely again. He was about to ask his dad for a needle and some thread when he was surprised at the presence of another person he hadn't seen in a while.

"Doctor Winston." Leonard said, positively surprised.

"Ah, young Mister Hofstadter." the doctor smiled. "I can see why your father called me at this late hour."

"As soon as I heard the banging of the bed, I knew you would be needed." Albert joked to the other older man.

"Jeez, dad." Leonard blushed hard.

"Come on, young man, sit down on the chair." the doctor ordered. "And I told you that you can call me Alfred."

"Sorry." Leonard shook his head. "I can't. It's too weird."

"What happened here?" Alfred asked as he inspected the wound.

"Ah... the stitches tore." Leonard replied. "If what my dad says is true, you know why."

"I mean, what caused the wound in the first place?" Alfred inquired more closely.

"A splinter from a fragmentation grenade got through my gear." Leonard explained. "The mother of the woman upstairs pulled it out and I sowed it shut. As well as the shoulder wound."

"The shoulder looks good." Alfred commented, checking the other wound. "We can pull the stitches from that one in a day or two."

"Go ahead." Leonard leaned back.

Alfred took a bottle and applied some icing spray, numbing the area around the wound. He took a sealed bag from his pack and broke it open, retrieving a needle and some surgical thread, knotting the latter onto the former. He began to work, first pulling the old stitches and then quickly and deftly closing the wound properly this time while Leonard felt no pain thanks to the cold on his skin. It took less than five minutes for the doctor to finish, cutting the thread and tying it off.

"You need something for the pain?" Alfred asked.

"No, it's manageable." Leonard shook his head. "And if I need something to kill the pain, I still have some at home."

"Will you get home okay?" Albert wanted to know.

"Dad, it's only twelve miles." Leonard chuckled. "I could walk that far."

"Take care, son." Albert said as Leonard took his jacket and turned to leave. "Try to come visit once in a while."

"I don't want to distract her from her training." Leonard argued.

"Leonard, I'm going to give her a day off once in a while." Albert winked. "I'll call you beforehand and if you're in the area, come over."

"Thanks, dad." Leonard stepped towards his dad and hugged him. "And take care of her, will you?"

"Of course." Alfred said. "When I'm done with her, she'll be the weapon she wants to be."

"Thank you Albert." Leonard turned to the doctor and offered him a coin.

"It's on the house." Albert refused it. "Take care of yourself."

"Thanks, doc." Leonard smiled at the man and left the house to go home.

* * *

The next morning, Penny woke up at seven-thirty to an empty bed, just like Leonard promised. For some reason, she had hoped, against all odds, that Leonard would return to the bed while she slept to give her a pleasant surprise in the morning but alas, it wasn't to be. She got up and walked into the bathroom, washing up and brushing her teeth. Since she would be training anyway and not going out, she didn't bother with makeup and got dressed in comfortable underwear, a sports bra and a sweater combo before heading downstairs at eight o'clock sharp.

"Good morning." Albert greeted her and waved her to the kitchen, where breakfast was spread on the kitchen island. "Sleep well?"

"Yes, thank you, Sir." Penny nodded.

"I told you to call me Albert." she was told. "I didn't know if you were a coffee person, so I only made tea."

"I drank a lot of coffee but after talking to your son, I decided to cut back." she said. "So tea is fine."

"Alright." Albert nodded. "This is Matcha green tea, and it will help you getting through the day."

"How?" she wondered, gingerly sipping the hot liquid.

"I could give you a list of its advantages or you could just believe me." Albert smiled.

"Where do you get it from?"

"I order the leaves straight from Japan." Albert told her. "My contacts there make it easy to get."

As she kept sipping the drink, she ate breakfast, consisting of eggs, some bacon and toast. She had no idea if it was the kind he was used to or if he gave her that in order to fuel her body but she ate it all, the taste very nice and worlds apart from the crap she used to eat when she was still working for Kurt.

"So, you are certainly wondering how your days will go from now on." Albert spoke up.

"I do, yes." Penny nodded.

"Today, I will show you around and test your stamina." Albert began. "From tomorrow onward, your training will begin at six in the morning and go on until ten at night."

"Will breakfast be earlier than that?" she wanted to know.

"No, breakfast will still be at eight." Albert shook his head. "Lunch is at twelve-thirty and dinner at six. Your training will be worked around it."

"Is training on empty stomach a good idea?" she was curious, never having done it.

"You will see." Albert chuckled and Penny accepted it, remembering Leonard's advise about being respectful.

"One more thing. You can ask me any question you want." Albert continued. "I may not answer some of them, and I'll even tell you never to mention it again, depending on what it is, but I value a thirst for knowledge."

"Understood." Penny nodded but decided not to ask questions about Leonard's past right away.

She finished eating and Albert cleaned the table, putting the dishes into the dishwasher. He led her outside and led her around the property, showing her the gardens and a few other things. A few people were on the property, caring for the plants and the fruit trees and Penny wondered what kind of fruit was growing in this climate.

"What fruit is that?" she asked, pointing to the trees.

"Apples." Albert replied.

"And they grow up here?"

"Sure, we have warm summers." Albert shrugged. "They're harvested in early September, so unless it's a freak year in terms of temperatures, there's no problem."

"How big is your property?" she looked around, seeing no fence line except the front gate where she and Leonard went through to get onto it.

"You see that forest over there?" Albert pointed to the right.

"Yeah." Penny nodded.

"I own that one with Leonard."

"Jesus, how big is your property?" Penny gasped.

"The non-forest area is a bit over twelve acres." Albert told her. "It's a rough rectangle a bit over six miles in length and a bit over three miles in width. The forest adds another thirty acres. My property line ends two miles before the border to Canada."

"Holy shit!" Penny held her hand over her mouth in shock. "Question, why are you owning a forest?"

"To protect it." Albert told her. "I allow some people in to hunt and they can only shoot a specific number or type of animal. I also allow people in to go on a walk or jogging but they also have to clean up after them."

"How do you prevent someone from simply going in to hunt?" she wondered. "Or from loitering?"

"I have cameras everywhere for animal observation anyway. And the official walkways are monitored as well." Albert explained. "I also have people working for me that take care of the forest. As for punishments, some people decided to be stupid and I had them arrested, that took care of anyone else who thought that the rules didn't apply to them."

"Wow." she whispered, getting a view on just how wealthy Leonard and his father appeared to be.

"So, now to your morning training." Albert proclaimed. "Start warming up and then get running."

"Where to?" she asked.

"Anywhere you want on my property. If you decide to run through the areas where my people work, stick to the designated walkways, other than that, you can run wherever you want." Albert explained.

"Okay." Penny nodded and began some stretching exercises.

* * *

**Alright, chapter ends here. Hope you liked it :D**

**Review please :)**


	10. Chapter 10

**And so it continues ^^**

**Enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.**

* * *

"Here you go." Albert said and handed her the bottle with the thick liquid.

"Thanks." Penny panted and sucked it down.

It had been a month.

A month filled with cardio exercises, primarily running and swimming and some indoor cycling when the weather made running impossible. After the first day introductions, Albert had really put her through the ringer daily, starting the day at six in the morning with two hours of stretching her muscles and joints, followed by breakfast and then running until she had to vomit.

After the first time that had happened, she had wondered how she was supposed to do more training after emptying her stomach of the breakfast she had consumed and not digested yet. But Albert had handed her a bottle with she had thought was juice but had turned out to be some thick liquid that tasted nice and helped to calm her upset stomach.

"It's real food." Albert had told her with a smile after she had asked him about it.

Albert had known that she would most likely throw up from the exhaustion, so he had mixed her what was essentially a smoothie consisting of egg whites, some oatmeal, blueberries, bananas and some other things, but despite her misgivings of being able to hold something inside her, she drank it and it helped calming her stomach. This time was no different, the thick liquid going down her throat and settling in her stomach, calming the churning that had led to the expulsion of what used to be in it before.

"Can I ask something?" Penny looked at Albert.

"Of course, I told you that you can." Albert nodded.

"Since I got here, you made me do running, swimming, cycling and every other form of cardio exercise." she pointed out.

"Yes. And your question is?"

"When are we getting to the fighting part?" she wondered.

"When you are able to sustain a fight." Albert explained. "My view on this is that for every minute that you train to fight, you should train three minutes to increase your stamina. I know of many people who lost their lives because they were too exhausted to go on after one big fight they had."

"Did you ever get into such a situation?" she wanted to know.

"Yes, once." Albert nodded. "I had the job of killing someone who always surrounded himself with his men. His domicile was built in a way that he was in a center room and the three rooms before his were full of his guys, connected by rather narrow corridors. The first room contained twelve of his goons and I had to move fast and wide to avoid getting shot."

"How did you survive that?" she gasped, unable to imagine any way he would get out of that.

"One thing to know when you're fighting multiple opponents is to make them get into each other's way." Albert told her. "Make them bump into each other and most importantly, make them hesitate to take a shot at you by having their friends between you and them Use them as shields while you shoot them."

"And I guess you yourself have to be in constant motion to avoid becoming a target?" Penny suggested.

"Very good." Albert nodded proudly. "Always stay in motion and don't become predictable, meaning, change your direction often. This isn't like martial arts movies where the heroes can fight twenty guys and then move on and act as if he didn't just exert him- or herself. Or where your opponents are nice enough to come at you one at a time."

"Also moving around crouched?" she asked.

"That too, if you can sustain it. Keep a low profile, make yourself a hard target." Albert agreed. "The best solution is to cut the power, making the room dark and use the dark vision goggles that you get from the outfitter."

"But night vision goggles are available on the free market, aren't they?"

"I said dark vision, not night vision. Come with me." Albert said and led her to a door, unlocking it and retrieving a pair of goggles that looked smaller than the night vision goggles she had seen on pictures or in movies. "Night vision goggles have a huge flaw. When you shine a bright light at the wearer, they get almost blinded by the sudden flash. Not good if you're in a firefight, where muzzle flashes light up spots in a dark room."

"And these ones?" she asked, putting them on.

"They only enhance the light available. If it's full daylight like now, they are essentially just goggles without function. The darker it gets, the more they enhance the light."

"What about absolute darkness?" she wondered.

"Well, you can't enhance what isn't there." Albert conceded. "But neither do night vision goggles, they also work with passive light. The only part you would retain is the heat vision, if the goggles have that. But then again, you rarely have absolute darkness."

"So, uh... what was the most people you killed during a single mission?" she asked, remembering that he told her she could ask anything.

"Twenty-eight." Albert said without having to think. "It was a gang of rapists whose leader had connections to local law enforcement and politicians so none of them ever got prosecuted. They terrorized an entire town until some parents cried out for help. I answered."

"Did they see you coming?"

"No." Albert shook his head. "But I made sure they knew why I killed them. And I killed them very painfully. I also hung signs around their necks what they did and I stole information their leader had stored about his connections and sent that to the press."

"Wait, I remember that." Penny interjected. "I remember seeing a documentary about that as a child. It was a huge scandal and it led to dozens of politicians and cops being arrested."

"Yes." Albert nodded.

"Can I ask? How did you get into this line of work?"

"Well, I... worked for the government, doing the same thing, just different targets in other countries." Albert hesitated. "They had me kill people you'd ask yourself why they should die. And one day, I just couldn't do it anymore. So I quit."

"I can't really believe they'd just let you." Penny mused. "Wouldn't they have maybe killed you to keep you quiet?"

"If I haven't had contacts to high-placed people, I might have been." Albert shrugged. "But I was too naive to think that I would be able to find something else to do. My government pension wasn't much, especially when you're just thirty-five, and I never managed to learn another craft. So I started doing what I knew how and became a killer for hire. At least that way, I could choose my targets."

"Ah, now I know where Leonard got his sense of right and wrong from." Penny smiled.

"Yes, my boy also wants to see bad people, who skirt justice, dead." Albert nodded. "Apart from his first job, where he had to kill an ex-wive of a rich person, after which he also had to kill the rich guy himself because that one wanted to kill Leonard, he has only took jobs that take out bad guys."

"And that's exactly what I want to do." Penny stated.

"We'll see if you can." Albert looked at her. "Feeling better?"

"Yes, a lot." Penny nodded. "This stuff you make is great."

"Good, because after lunch, we'll start with the combat training." Albert stated.

"Really?" she was excited. "No more running?"

"Oh, you will still do cardio exercises." Albert chuckled. "But Penny, do you have any idea what you have done this morning?"

"Um... no?" Penny was confused.

"Do you realize how far you've run?"

"Ah... no." Penny shook her head.

"You ran some of the forest trails today too, right?" Albert smiled. "I saw you on the cameras."

"I did, yes." Penny nodded.

"You also ran around my entire property at the fence line, except the part with the apple trees and grapevines." Albert revealed. "Which means, young lady, that you ran a marathon plus four miles."

"Seriously?" Penny gasped. "I ran thirty miles?"

"You did." Albert nodded proudly. "Which means you have, in fact, the cardio requirements I want to have from someone I train."

"Yes!" Penny whooped. "When is lunch?"

"Thirty minutes." Albert told her. "It's potatoes with lean steak."

"I'll be there." Penny grinned and even had the energy back to run upstairs for a quick shower and to change.

The diet Albert had her on was all food that was easily digestible. Chicken, other lean meat, turkey, fish with cooked potatoes, green beans or carrots. She was hankering for some spaghetti but when she had asked, he had told her that if she ate that, she'd vomit a lot earlier when she was exerting herself again. Still, he had acquiesced to her wish, at least to some degree and offered a small portion of spaghetti for some lunch, not too much but enough to sate her appetite for it for a time.

As she swept the towel over her back, she saw the reflection of her naked body in the mirror, something she had never really taken any notice since she got here. She almost didn't recognize the person looking back at her. She always had kept herself fit but there had been some softer parts on her but now, everything looked rock hard. Her skin was tight over her body, she could see the outlines of her muscles everywhere and to her surprise, her breasts seemed a lot more firm than they had been before.

She quickly got dressed and headed downstairs where Albert was finishing setting the table. The lunch was good as ever, lean meat with potatoes and some vegetables. Once they were done, Albert cleaned up everything and then led Penny out of the house into another building that turned out to be a gym with a large clear area for combat training.

"Now, the first thing we do is stretching and loosening of joints." Albert said and led her through the exercises.

At first, Penny followed his lead but when the stretching got into its second hour, she felt as if he was ribbing her.

"Uh, why are we doing this for so long again?" she asked him, since they did a two hour stretching before breakfast.

"Penny, when it comes to combat, you always want your muscles and joints loose, otherwise, you will get injured." Albert explained. "I took this idea from Muhammad Ali."

"The boxer?" she was surprised.

"Yes, when he trained, he always spent over an hour just warming up and stretching before he even threw the first punch against the punching bag." Albert nodded. "I've known some of my colleagues to get injured during training because they didn't warm up properly. As equally important is the stretching after the training to avoid sore muscles."

"I understand." Penny accepted, bowing to Albert's wisdom.

"Tell me, young lady, have you ever fought?" Albert asked.

"I grew up with an older sister and older brother, so yes." Penny nodded. "And during my... dark years, I had to fight other prostitutes from time to time and sometimes a client or two."

"So, basically, you can do a little street fighting, but nothing concrete." Albert concluded.

"Yes."

"Alright, so this is what we'll do." Albert proclaimed. "You attack me for fifteen minutes and I will only defend. If you manage to hit me in the chest or face at least once, I will go a little more easy on you during your training. If you can't hit me, I will go full force with you."

"Okay." Penny smiled excitedly and prepared to attack.

* * *

"Help!" Penny shouted after waking up, unable to move, her shout causing the trample of feet as Albert ran up the stairs.

"Penny, you're okay?" Albert shouted through the closed door.

"No, help, please!" Penny called back and the door opened, revealing the older man.

"What's wrong?" he asked, seeing her on the bed.

"I can't move." she almost cried. "I mean, I can move my arms but every time I try to get up, I have a terrible pain in my back. And I really need to use the bathroom."

"Come on, I'll help you up." Albert said and took her arms, pulling her into a seating position, Penny's teeth clenching. "Can you turn your legs?"

"I can, yes." Penny nodded and turned her body so her legs dangled off the bed. "But I can't stand up.

"Come on." Albert stood before her and pulled, Penny voicing pain as she stood upright. "Can you walk?"

"Oh my god!" Penny groaned and took very small steps, her back ramrod straight. "What's wrong with me?"

"I'll call the doctor." Albert said as he helped her to the bathroom. "So, uh..."

"I don't think I care about shame right now." Penny said and let Albert pull down her pajama bottoms, the older man doing it from the side to be as chivalrous as possible, seeing that his son should be the only one allowed to see her like that.

"Can you sit down by yourself?"

"Let me see." Penny said and tried to lower her body, managing only a few inches and more or less falling the rest. "Ouch."

"Okay, do your thing while I call the doctor. When you're done, I'll help you back to the bed." Albert told her and left the bathroom.

"Jesus, what's going on?" Penny wondered as she relieved herself.

Luckily, the bathroom was built in a way that allowed her to reach the cabinet with her toothbrush and toothpaste from her perch on the toilet. She used the glass to drink some water before brushing her teeth, finishing both and trying to stand up. When she was in a half-crouch, the sharp pain returned and she flopped back down, resigning herself to wait until Albert returned.

The older man came back a minute later, helping her up and again pulling up her bottoms until her hands could reach it to put it back into place. He helped her back into bed, where she once more just flopped down and let herself fall backwards until she was prone again, her legs still off the bed. Albert lifted them and turned her body slowly until she was fully in bed again. Fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang and Albert went downstairs to open it, letting the doctor in, who came into her room where he put his bag down next to the bed.

"Penny, was it?" the doctor asked her.

"Yes." she nodded.

"My name is Alfred Winston." he introduced himself. "What's the problem."

"I can barely move." Penny described. "When I try to get up, I have terrible pain and when I'm on my feet, I can only move with small steps with my back straight. I can't dip my body to the side and I have trouble pulling my arms to my body."

"Albert, what have you done with her?" Alfred asked the other man.

"Regular training." Albert shrugged. "Yesterday we swam, then did some dual-handed weapons training."

"Did you hit her in the back?"

"From time to time, yes." Albert confirmed. "But never against her spine."

"Alright, lets see." Alfred nodded and knelt down at the foot of the bed. "I'm going to see if you have feeling in your feet, alright?"

"Okay." Penny nodded.

"Tell me if you feel that." Alfred said and pressed something against her foot.

"I did." Penny said and confirmed all the other spots Alfred pressed his pen against.

"Okay, now turn around." Alfred told her.

"I don't know if I can." Penny sighed and tried to turn.

"Albert, little help?" Alfred looked poignantly at the man and together, they turned Penny onto her stomach.

"Penny, I'm going to put pressure against your back. Tell me when you feel a spike of pain." Alfred said.

"Okay." Penny nodded and waited while the doctor pushed his fist against her lower spine and ground his knuckles over it.

"Nothing so far?" Alfred asked.

"Apart from the pressure of your hand itself, it's not particularly painful." she told him.

"Okay, lets see." Alfred mused and pushed against another part of her back.

"YEAOUCH!" Penny screamed when she felt a sharp pain. "Jesus, that hurt."

"I see." Alfred nodded to himself, seeing the problem and pushing against the opposite spot, receiving the same reaction from Penny.

"So, what's the problem?" Albert wanted to know.

"The good news, nothing is wrong with her spine." Alfred told him as they turned Penny onto her back again. "No discs popped out, no nerves pinched."

"And the bad news?" Penny asked.

"Both of your lattissimus dorsi have cramped up severely." Alfred revealed. "Probably due to the lack of recovery for them after they took a beating, literally speaking. That's why you can only walk with a straight back and can't dip your body to the side."

"I did stretching afterwards." Penny pointed out.

"Sometimes simple stretching isn't enough when your muscles get beaten." Alfred told her. "The best would be an additional ice bath to alleviate the swelling and bruising that occurs."

"I can provide that." Albert nodded.

"For now, I'll give you some muscle relaxants and pain killers." Alfred said and got some boxes from his medicine bag. "Take one relaxant three times a day, after breakfast, lunch and dinner. Take the pain killers only if it becomes unbearable and only one pill at a time."

"What about my training?" Penny asked.

"Unless you can find something you can do from your bed or without moving much, it's on halt." Alfred told her. "The muscle relaxants are very strong, you wouldn't be allowed to drive a car or even ride a bicycle when you're on them, so fighting is out of the question."

"So I am bedridden now?" Penny wanted to know.

"For the moment, yes." Alfred confirmed. "When you feel the relaxants working, you can try to get up and walk around. But no heavy lifting and no physical training."

"I'm sure I can find something we can do that doesn't involve physical labor." Albert accepted the doctor's orders.

"Not this morning though." Alfred told him. "You should give her body time to let the relaxants do their job so she can at least get up and move around again."

"Thanks, doc." Albert said to him and led him back downstairs.

"Ugh." Penny huffed, taking one of the pills out and swallowing it with some water from the bottle she kept on her nightstand.

She wondered if this would be a recurring theme for her stay, doing some training and then lying in bed, unable to move. She moved a bit, seeing how manageable the pain was and to her relief, just moving her body around slowly didn't hurt a bit. Another attempt at getting up was rewarded with some more pain but now that she knew it was her muscles and not her spine, she felt better already.

"How do you feel?" Albert asked as he came into the room, carrying a tray with her breakfast and, to her surprise, a helmet.

"Well, now that I know it's not the spine, better already." Penny sighed and pushed herself into a more upright position by stuffing some pillows under her back.

"I found something for you to do while you're bedridden." Albert proclaimed and showed her a ball.

"Okay..." Penny hesitated, wondering what this was for while she began eating.

"This is to train your depth perception with one eye." he explained.

"I don't understand." Penny admitted.

"In our line of work, it's possible you get injured in one eye, leaving you temporarily blind on one." Albert told her. "If that happens, you can't really fight because you won't hit your opponents anymore."

"How does it work?"

"Easy." Albert showed her the objects. "The helmet's visor can block one of your eyes and you throw the ball against the ceiling and catch it again."

"Wouldn't some goggles be enough?" she wondered about the necessity of the helmet.

"Sure, if you can deal with the ball hitting you in the face from time to time." Albert pointed out.

"Ah, point taken." Penny chuckled. "But what if the ball flies away? I can't really get up quickly to retrieve it."

"That's what the cord is for." Albert showed her a long, thick cord. "You wrap the end around your wrist or a finger and the other side comes around the ball. If the ball flies through the room, you can simply pull it back. The cord is long enough to not impede its flight to the ceiling."

"That's brilliant." Penny nodded impressed and quickly finished her breakfast.

"Alright, let me help you." Albert said and tied the cord around the ball to make it impossible for it to slip out before doing the same with her wrist, using a wristband to avoid tying it to hard around.

After Albert had left with the tray, Penny put on the helmet, adding the blocker for her left eye and began throwing the ball to the ceiling. Albert's insistence on the helmet proved to be justified when the ball hit several points on what would have been her bare head and face, bouncing off the material. She regularly switched the blockers, training her left and right eye at the same rate.

Sometimes, the ball landed on her body, the blanket covering her taking the brunt of the impact but in some spots, she could feel it, like in her abdomen or once when it hit her directly on her right breast. The ball also flew freely through the room, once almost making her nightstand lamp fall down but she managed to catch it and put it under the bed to protect it. A few times, it caused her pain when it hit her fingers or arms but other than that, it was fine using it.

She spent several hours doing this, taking a few breaks in between. Albert brought her a light lunch at some point, enough since she wasn't really moving and watched her a bit throwing the ball. She had to admit, while at first she could barely catch the ball, misjudging the distance often, she got better, able to catch it regularly.

"Impressive." Albert commented. "You learn quick, it took Leonard three days until he was able to catch half of his throws."

"Really?" Penny beamed, happy to hear that. "Can you tell me where I stand right now, I mean in general?"

"Well, your combat technique is still a little stiff but you have the moves down." Albert described. "You need to be a bit more spontaneous in your move set, right now you always to the same order of how I taught them to you."

"Is that why you beat me up that much?" she asked.

"Yes." Albert nodded. "Remember, it's also because you didn't hit me."

"Ugh." Penny groaned, remembering the first day of combat training, where she had been unable to hit him even once, the older man either evading her attacks or blocking them.

As Penny had trained with the man, she had been marveled at his flexibility and mobility. For a man his age, he could move extremely well, doing flips, kicks, punches and even splits. A full split was something Penny had never managed to do before but now, she could do it do once Albert had been through with her.

That part had been extremely painful. He had bound a rope to her ankles and sat behind her, his back to her back and then slowly pushed on the rope with his feet, spreading her legs until he felt the resistance of her tendons. But then he had kept pulling until she had voiced her pain, keeping her legs in that position until she had gotten used to it before pulling a bit more.

They had done this for sixteen days straight, only broken up by cardio exercises, eating and sleep. Her legs had felt as if every tendon had snapped but after those sixteen days, she could do a full split without problems, jumping up and doing one or letting herself flop to the ground in a split, which had hurt badly the first time she did it because an uneven patch of grass below her had hit her hard in the vagina.

For some reason, her first thought after achieving this had been about Leonard's reaction to it, especially if she did it for him naked. That thought had brought home how much she missed him, his calming presence and just the ease she felt around him. His dad kept her occupied enough that she didn't think of him every day, her head full of the training stuff and her free time, as Leonard had predicted, filled with showering and sleep, the exhaustion simply too much.

But now that she was in bed, unable to get out and throwing a ball, it gave her way too much time to think. She asked herself if she wanted to be around Leonard even if it didn't lead to carnal pleasure and she could admit to herself that the answer was yes. She wanted him around her, wanted him close, even if he was just sitting next to her, cleaning his guns while she sharpened a knife. And would she say no to sex? Of course not.

"Listen, as soon as you can walk again, I'm teaching you how to shoot." Albert broke her train of thought about Leonard. "At least until you can do combat training again. And once we start that, I'll have you take an ice bath afterwards."

"Not looking forward to that." Penny shuddered already, imagining stepping into a tub full of water with ice cubes.

"You'll live." Albert smiled and left the room to let her throw the ball some more.

* * *

**Well, a small part of her training done. Who knows what Albert will do to her next ^^**

**Review please :)**


	11. Chapter 11

**Warriorcreed: No, he's letting her heal because it doesn't make sense to teach someone how to fight if that someone can't fully move. Years ago, I bruised my wrist during self-defense training and the trainer told me to come back only when I was fully healed because otherwise, I'd only make things worse and because I couldn't fully use that hand the way I needed to.**

**Hokie3457: Miss you buddy, hope you're okay.**

**Enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.**

* * *

"So, how do you feel?" Albert asked the next morning after Penny's ordeal and forced bed rest, having let her sleep until eight and not making her get up at six like usual.

"I can walk again but leaning to either side is still painful." Penny told him.

"That will probably take another day or two until that is healed." Albert conceded. "Don't worry, someone will come over later to help you with that."

"Leonard?" she asked excitedly.

"No." Albert shook his head. "Now eat, after breakfast, I'm going to teach you how to use a gun."

"I already know how to shoot, I did it with my dad when I was a teenager." she told him as she sat down.

"Penny, there's more to a gun than just shooting it." Albert pointed out. "When you shot your father's gun, did you take it apart afterwards to clean it and put it back together?"

"Um... no." Penny admitted. "I just fired them and handed it back to him."

"See?" Albert smiled. "Your guns are your tools. As such, you need to keep them in working order. The last thing you want on a mission is your equipment failing in any way."

"I understand." Penny nodded, realizing how little she actually knew. "How many guns will you teach me to fire?"

"Several types of handguns, several types of shotguns, several semi-automatic weapons and of course, a sniper rifle." he told her.

"And I have to master everyone of them?" she gasped.

"No, but at least two or three of them." Albert shook his head. "Nobody is an expert with every weapon. But you need to find out which weapon fits you the most. Some people feel best using handguns, others can do their best work with a semi-automatic one."

"Which is Leonard's?"

"Leonard is proficient with handguns and semi-automatic rifles and can hold his own with shotguns, they he doesn't like that latter because of their recoil." Albert said. "He is an expert marksman though."

"Really?" she was impressed.

"Yes, he could put a hole into a coin that's three hundred yards away." Albert said proudly. "And he can hit a human target from two thousand yards away."

"Jesus!" Penny couldn't help being impressed..

"Now, come on." Albert said and led her not outside, but to the basement door and down the steps.

Penny wondered what they'd do in this clean, but a bit cluttered room when Albert pressed a light switch in a what looked to her random pattern, with no light going on or off. After the rather long pressing combination, a panel slid to the side, revealing a keypad where Albert entered a long code so quickly that Penny had no chance of remembering it, even though she was watching him do it.

When Albert finished entering the code, a tool rack slid downwards into the floor and the wall opened to the side, revealing another set of stairs. He waved her to follow him and she walked down after him until they reached a dark room. Albert flicked another light switch and the room became illuminated.

"Jesus fucking Christ." Penny gasped upon seeing the room in light.

In front of her was a long hall with targets hanging in the distance, a regular shooting range. The left and right sides of the room were plastered with weapons of all kinds, separated by type, one corner only having handguns, with semi-automatic rifles next to that, the other side housing the shotguns, both manual and automatic and the larger rifles. A separate cabinet even housed a fully automatic machine gun and a six-barreled minigun was hanging from the ceiling on several steel cables.

"Welcome to my playground." Albert laughed. "Just kidding."

"Which ones will I shoot?" she asked.

"Every one of them except the machine gun and the minigun." Albert said, pointing to the ceiling before grabbing the first gun, a simple Glock and a magazine from a drawer, handing both to her. "How much do you know about a gun like this?"

"My dad has a similar one." Penny nodded and took it, sliding the magazine into the weapon and loading a bullet into the chamber, leaving the safety on.

"Good." Albert nodded, then gave her a poignant stare, his face turning angry. "But never... ever, load a weapon again while standing in the middle of this room. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?!"

"Yes, Sir." Penny actually backed away a step, the sudden change in the older man's demeanor frightening to behold.

"Now, go before the range." he pointed to the stand and let a target paper come down at the end. "Take aim and fire."

Penny was so rattled by the loud rebuke following her mistake that she forgot to switch the safety off, the gun clicking loudly when she pulled the trigger. On Albert's orders, she put it down and took a few deep breaths, calming herself from his outburst and repeated the exercise, taking aim and letting loose a few shots, most of them hitting the target in the six and seven rings.

"Not bad." Albert commented. "With a little more exercise, you'll become quite proficient with it."

"How good a shot are you?" she asked.

"Let me show you." Albert said and let another target paper fall into place, putting out his hands so she would hand him the gun.

Albert got another magazine and returned to the range. In one fell swoop, he let the empty magazine slip out the gun, replaced it with the new one and emptied it against the target, all ten shots hitting inside the ten ring, almost taking all the paper out of it. What amazed her the most was the fact that Albert had taken barely any time to aim, just lifting the gun and shooting.

"Wow." Penny chuckled in awe.

"Take these and do it again." Albert said and put a large box on the small table next to her.

For half an hour straight, Penny shot the gun at the target, releasing the magazine and using the loose bullets from the box to reload them. Part of the exercise was to reload the gun quickly, Albert showing her how fast she should be, with him holding the gun straight out, dropping the old magazine and in one arm movement, sliding the new one into the gun without ever letting his right arm and the aim of the gun drop.

Penny had trouble achieving this feat, her attempts to mirror what he was doing foiled by her pushing the magazine either past the weapon or against it. Albert cautioned her that this would take her weeks if not months to achieve it but Penny was determined to make up for her mistake at the beginning of this and learn it quicker.

Even when Albert left the room to prepare lunch, Penny stayed, promising him not to shoot but only to learn how to quickly reload like he did. Her right wrist was bruised and hurting from all the times she rammed the magazine against it and every time she dropped them to the floor, she winced when she picked them up, her back muscles still bothering her. After a few more minutes, she changed her tactics, using only one magazine, letting it slide out of the gun and catching it, then letting her left arm hang at her side before lifting it up in an attempt to get the magazine back into the gun without moving it.

"YEAH BABY!" Penny shouted excitedly the first time she achieved it.

"Good." Albert's voice startled her. "Now do it again."

Penny repeated the action, succeeding in roughly a third of the attempts. Albert looked at it impressed, noticing that Penny used only one magazine but he allowed her that success, deciding to tell her later that she still had to achieve it with two separate magazines, especially when she had to take the new one out of her belt or pockets.

"Alright, come on, lets get to lunch." Albert said and led her out of the basement. "When we're done with that, you're going to clean the gun and take another one."

"Just how much ammo do you have?" she wondered.

"Let me just say, my arsenal could outfit a company." Albert smiled.

"Doesn't that become weird if the police ever came to inspect or something?" she asked.

"Young lady, do you really think any of those guns down there is registered?" Albert chuckled. "Or that I buy my ammo in a regular gun store."

"I guess not." she admitted, feeling stupid.

"I do have a few guns upstairs, bought in gun stores, registered, with ammunition." Albert told her. "And should you pass all the tests, you will have guns specifically made for you, so they fit you like a glove, so to speak. Leonard's sniper rifle, for example, took almost six months to make, with numerous fittings and test runs until it was like a part of himself."

"Wow." Penny breathed, realizing that she hadn't even scraped the surface of the depth of that world.

"Now sit down young lady, I got some good food for you." Albert smiled and put a plate in front of her.

"Pasta!" she was surprised, the small mountain of spaghetti covered in tomato sauce with small pieces of meat in various spaces on and inside the mound.

"Since there won't be any cardio training today due to your back, I thought you could use some form of culinary pickup." Albert said and began eating as well, his portion smaller than Penny's.

"Thank you so much." Penny smiled and dug in.

The first few bites she ate were as much as she could fit into her mouth, though after that, she paced herself, wanting to enjoy this rare event of getting spaghetti. She still was mad at herself for that stupid mistake she made in the basement when she loaded the gun and angered her host and trainer. She felt somehow like she had let him down and Leonard as well and she hoped that it wouldn't be detrimental to her prospects of finishing, especially given the ultimate punishment for not passing the tests.

Properly stuffed, she leaned back, closing her eyes to enjoy the feeling. Albert gave her half an hour before leading her back into the basement, continuing her firearms training. As he had promised her, the first thing she had to do was to take the gun apart, clean it and put it back together, Penny having trouble doing that even with Albert guiding her, sometimes having no clue where a certain smaller part of the gun went.

"The key is repetition." Albert counseled her. "Soldiers in the military, when they are in basic training, have to take apart their weapons and put them back together again and again until every move is so ingrained into them that they could do it blindfolded."

"Could I take the gun into my room so I can practice it?" Penny asked. "I'll take an empty magazine."

"No." Albert shook his head. "These guns will not leave this basement. But you can take one of my registered guns, I have one of the same model."

"Thank you." she accepted that.

"But I'd advise you not to take too long, because you will need your sleep." Albert told her. "Tomorrow, we will continue your cardio exercises, you can move well enough again now."

"I don't think I can run yet." Penny hesitated.

"But you can sit on a stationary bike." he pointed out. "If you wait several days, most of your gains will be gone."

"What does Leonard do when he's on a mission?" she wondered. "I mean, he can't do cardio every day, right?"

"Unless he's sleeping in the field somewhere, then he can. The hotels that are affiliated with us have gyms and every one staying there uses it in the morning. And even if the town or city he's in doesn't have a affiliated hotel, Leonard usually frequents hotels that also have gyms."

"I see." Penny accepted. "Leonard was attacked by another one from your business, so what would happen if the two had met in the hotel gym? I doubt they have weapons on them."

"That wouldn't happen." Albert shook his head. "In our business, there are several unwritten rules of conduct. Some are more like guidelines but a few are strictly enforced. One of those rules is that the hotel property is neutral territory. Absolutely no fighting on hotel grounds."

"And what if someone breaks that rule?"

"If they're not caught by hotel security right away, he or she will have an open contract on him." Albert said. "They would be hunted down by every other assassin in the world. Nowhere would be safe. So far, nobody has dared to challenge that rule."

"Well, this Caspar certainly tried." Penny pointed out.

"Yes, and look what happened to him." Albert chuckled. "If you really want to break a rule, you would need to make sure that nobody else knows about it. Had Caspar succeeded in killing my boy, he would have killed you and your family and then the crew he had hired so they wouldn't talk to anyone and nobody would have any idea what had happened to Leonard."

"Interesting." Penny nodded, the world she wanted to be a part of truly complex. "Or rather, frightening."

Penny put the gun back together for the last time and Albert gave her a semi-automatic rifle. This time, she only loaded it when standing at the range, putting it up to her eye the way it felt natural to her. When she pulled the trigger, she was surprised by the hard recoil, the barrel moving up after the three shots had exited.

"Quite the difference, isn't it?" Albert chuckled. "This weapon has three fire modes. First is single shot, which means only one bullet comes out when you depress the trigger, even if you hold it down. Second mode, which you just did, is a three shot salvo. Third mode is fully automatic, which simply means that when you depress the trigger, it'll shoot until you run out of ammo.

"I guess single shot is best for targeting purposes." Penny said.

"Correct." Albert nodded. "The three shot mode is good for stopping power since the lift of the barrel hits several points in a target. The full automatic mode is never advised unless you wanna suppress your enemy."

"Automatic would make me run out of ammo pretty quickly, though." Penny stated.

"It would." Albert confirmed.

For the rest of the day, Penny shot various guns, took them apart and cleaned them. When dinner time came along, Albert had her clean up the area, sweeping the spent bullet casings and throwing them into a trash can, the bin getting pretty heavy as it filled with metal casings. Albert gave her a light dinner of cold cuts and bread, Penny wolfing it down greedily before helping him to clean up. When the doorbell rang, Penny perked up, thinking that it could only be Leonard coming but to her surprise and disappointment, a diminutive Asian woman entered the house, bowing to Albert who bowed back.

"Penny, this is Lee So-young." Albert introduced her. "She will do a deep-tissue massage of your back."

"Really?" Penny was surprised. "Cool."

"Don't think this will be a breeze." Albert chuckled. "Her deep tissue massages are quite painful but they work amazingly."

"Where do you want to do it?" the small woman asked with a heavy accent.

"My room, maybe?" Penny suggested. "I mean, her bag looks quite heavy, so if you have a room down here we could use, that might be better."

"You can use my study." Albert nodded and pointed to a door at the end of the hallway, the woman nodding and grabbing her large bag, pulling it to the room on its wheels, Penny following them.

"Please take off your shirt and bra." So-young said after Albert had left.

"Um, okay." Penny felt a bit steamrolled but acquiesced, removing her upper body clothing and lying down on the massage table, her face looking through the familiar hole in it.

"Mister Hofstadter has told me that your upper back muscles are the problem, is that correct?" So-young asked as she began gently kneading her back muscles.

"Yes, they completely locked up, so much so that I as unable to get up without help." Penny confirmed.

"Okay, I will concentrate my efforts on those areas." So-young said and continued, pushing harder. "Feel free to curse, if you need to."

"OH SHIT!" Penny yelled in sudden pain when the little woman dug her fingers into Penny's back muscles. "FUCK FUCK FUCK!"

True to Albert's words, the massage was painful to the core, Penny feeling as if being tortured. She'd happily tell that woman everything she wanted to know, if only she asked her some questions. But without saying anything, that petite woman continued to brutalize her with her massage for minute after minute, Penny even trying to alleviate it by biting her hand. She wondered how this was supposed to help her but finally, after forty-five minutes of sheer torture, the Asian woman stopped and proclaimed the end of the massage.

"Bloody hell!" Penny gasped once she managed to get up.

The pain in her back was mostly gone, her body able to bend to the side once more. She bent forward, pushing her fingertips to her toes and managed to do it without problems, doing a few side bends and feeling only slight pain, not enough to be bothersome. On one hand, she was glad that she was feeling better once more, on the other it meant that from tomorrow onward, Albert would beat her up during combat training again.

While she got dressed, she wondered what Leonard was doing right now.

* * *

"Gracias." Leonard said and handed a stack of thousand-peso coins to the boy, him and his friends running off to wherever they could spend it.

"So?" his contact asked him.

"He'll be there tonight." Leonard said, keeping as quiet as possible. "I will go on foot when it gets dark and return the same way. When I knock on your door later, you drive me back to the airport."

"What if his men seek retribution?"

"I'll take care of that." Leonard promised him and left him alone, moving to a secluded area and taking out his phone, dialing a number he hadn't used in years.

"Si?" a male voice answered the call. "Quien es?"

"Es John." Leonard used his cover moniker, hoping his broken Spanish was enough. "Es bueno saber de ti, Javier."

"Ah, John, your Spanish is still atrocious." Javier laughed. "But it's good to hear from you too. What can I do for you?"

"Are you aware of the guerrilla cell near La Cenizosa?" Leonard asked him.

"I am, yes." Javier confirmed. "What about it? Did they commit another massacre?"

"Their leader will... uh... go into early permanent retirement tonight." Leonard told him. "How fast can you get some forces here to protect the town from retribution?"

"Can you guarantee that he will stop being a problem?" Javier asked.

"Yes." Leonard replied courtly.

"I can have a unit with vehicles there in three hours." Javier said almost breathlessly, Leonard hearing buttons of another phone pressed.

"Send a notification to the phone I called with when they are in place. The guerrillas will come from the north." Leonard told him. "When I have it, Jorge Gonzales will retire for good."

Leonard left the town and began walking, the sky already darkening. He kept to the brush, his cameoline suit making his body blend in with the brush, with only his head visible, making him look like a floating head from afar. A few times, he heard vehicles in the distance, going to the ground to hide in case someone was coming.

The approach to the compound remained uneventful, some animals scurrying out of his way when he approached. When he had reached the target area, he saw the few buildings housing the guerrillas, a few patchwork bungalows, several tents and a central tower, the remains of an old military airfield.

From the children in town, who had overheard guerrillas getting food supplies from there, he had learned that the commander of the cell had installed bulletproof glass in his office on top of the tower, fearing exactly what Leonard was about to do the man. Leonard produced a monocular from one of his pockets, putting it on his eye to look at the compound.

He saw multiple guerrillas on guard duty, most of them standing in a slouch that told of boredom while others played cards or drank or ate. A look through the window showed the commander sitting in his chair at his desk, two subordinates in front of him but still leaving Leonard's line of sight unimpeded.

Leonard put his backpack down and waited, pulling his hood over his head to hide from any prying eyes. The sun disappeared beneath the horizon and one hour later, it was almost completely dark, only a few patches of light sky visible, with cloud cover blocking the light of the moon and stars. A few minutes after eleven, Leonard's phone buzzed and upon checking it, he saw the message that the guarding forces were in place.

Nodding to himself, Leonard took his backpack and opened it, producing several rolls of cloth. Each roll contained part of his weapon, a sniper rifle he had had custom-made for him to his exact specification. Howard had done amazing work, every part made to perfection and Leonard quietly slid them in place, his moves ingrained from years of repetition.

He slid the scope into place and looked through the monocular again, the advanced piece of technology showing him the distance to his target, or rather, the distance to the bulletproof window separating his target from open air. He eyeballed the extra distance and added it to the distance shown on his monocular, nodding to himself and setting the scope to nine hundred and twenty-five feet.

Leonard looked at his target through the scope. Like he had learned from his dad, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds and releasing, then opening his eyes. His aim had shifted slightly so he aimed true once more and repeated his breathing exercise, doing it three more times until his aim was still true after breathing out. His gloved finger depressed the trigger, which caused a chain of reaction that in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases resulted in the death of the target.

The ammo he used made the usual protections of bad people obsolete. The barrel, made with his own exact specification was a hair's breath thinner than the bullet. Half a dozen flat panels running the inside length of the barrel sheared off the excess width of the bullet, the panel alignment causing the bullet to start a fast rotation, which guaranteed a stable flight.

The bullet exited the barrel point zero six seconds after depressing of the trigger with an exit velocity of two thousand, eight hundred and fifty-nine feet per second. Since his target was only nine hundred and twenty-five feet away, the bullet reached it in less than a third of a second. The flash was bright enough to be seen by Jorge Gonzales and any guard looking into Leonard's general direction, but with a flying time of less than a third of a second, his target had no time to react at all.

During its flight, the bullet lost speed and height due to gravity and air friction but the scope was adjusted to compensate for that. When the target was in the center of the cross hairs, the barrel targeted a point about fifteen inches above the target. At a shorter distance this would have led to him missing the target but the scope was preset to exactly nine hundred and twenty-five feet.

What a lot of people, Gonzales included, didn't understand was that bulletproof glass was not really bulletproof. Glass could be made thicker or harder but it wasn't different from any other armor material. It was subject to the same laws of physics and those laws didn't allow the existence of an immobile object which was the glass and an unstoppable force which was the bullet. Bulletproof glass was designed to stop or deflect the most widespread forms of ammunition that was used worldwide by hit men, terrorists or homicidal maniacs.

But a high caliber bullet or specialized ammunition could destroy or penetrate it. His bullet, like his rifle, was made to his exact specifications with a core made of a small amount of cesium, surrounded by a tungsten mantle formed like a needle with the whole thing encased in a lead sabot.

When the bullet hit the glass, it transferred its kinetic energy to the transparent material. The glass, which in reality was an extremely viscous liquid, bulged inwards but when the strain of the impacting force became too much it began to buckle. Microscopic cracks appeared at the point of impact which spread outwards like a cobweb.

These cracks were proof that the glass was doing its job because the formation of those cracks used up a lot of energy. The glass buckled in a very concentrated area but ultimately, it did its job and stopped the bullet. The rest of the window held and the thirty-three grams of lead were flattened by the impact without penetrating the glass.

The hard tungsten needle wouldn't be as easily stopped as the soft lead. The three millimeter needle with the bulge at the end shed its lead hull and broke through the weakened glass. It covered the distance to Jorge Gonzales' head in the blink of an eye with the uneven, cracked structure of the glass impacting its flight stability.

The needle started to spin slightly and hit Gonzales right under his left eye. The skull density further changed the trajectory, the bullet core ripping through the brain matter and shattering apart. The cesium reacted with the brain fluids in the same way every element in the first column of the periodic table reacted with water.

Violently.

The small explosion fractured the back of the man's skull, the pressure pushing the brain matter into the direction of the fracture, spreading the insides of his head against the wall behind him. Before Jorge Gonzales' body had came to rest of the floor, Leonard was already dismantling his sniper rifle and packing it up into his backpack. As shouts of alarm went through the compound, Leonard silently moved away from the area, keeping to the shadows as searchlights illuminated the spot he had just vacated. He took out his phone and dialed the number he had been given.

"Mission accomplished." he spoke into the phone.

He ended the call as quickly as he had made it and took out the sim card before breaking the phone apart, letting the parts fall down around him. He took out a small plastic bottle, unscrewing the cap and dropping the sim card in it, the hydrochloric acid inside the bottle dissolving the small electronic chip quickly, the only trace of its existence the elements of the material it was made of. He capped the bottle again and stowed it inside his bodyglove before moving on with a brisker pace.

He heard the sound of engines and quickly dropped into a ditch, crawling under the brush and stopping any movement. Several vehicles drove past his positions, searchlights going over his hiding place but the properties of his outfit that was not covered by brush hiding him from their prying eyes.

The lights moved away as did the sound of the engines. Leonard counted to sixty before getting up again, resuming his walk back towards the town. He hoped that his contact in the Colombian DNI had been successful in sounding the alarm bells and there were enough forces to protect the people of the town he had used as a base of operations from the retaliation of the cell's members.

As he walked, he heard the familiar sounds of gunfire and he increased his pace to reach it in case the civilians were the targets. He could discern semi-automatic rifles and some handguns, everything the guerrillas were using but when a sudden deep whoomph reached his ears, followed by an explosion, he smiled to himself.

He slowed his pace again and walked with his regular speed for the next hour until he saw the lights of the town in the distance. Fires were burning in front of it, the remains of the vehicles the rebels had sped past him with and several figures walking around, using fire extinguishers and hoses to turn out those fires one at a time.

He put his monocular over his eye and looked at the people moving around, seeing the uniforms of the regular military forces plus the special forces of the national intelligence service. To his surprise, he even saw several tanks, two six-wheeled Cascavels with their standard thirty-seven millimeter cannons in their turrets as well as four LAVs, large eight-wheeled vehicles carrying a twenty-five millimeter chain gun, which he knew would have easily chewed through the guerrillas forces attacking the town.

A vibration in his pocket made him aware of a phone alert. He took out the device and checked it, seeing the money deposit arriving in his accounts. He smiled and chuckled, thinking about how many of his colleagues used bank accounts in the Cayman Islands to avoid the government from seeing it. His dad had thought him one of the most overlooked aspects of the Internal Revenue Service. As long as you paid your taxes on your income, nobody would look too closely at your returns.

He knew that most of his associates who hid their money did it to avoid paying most of it but Leonard was fine with losing almost half his income to the various levels of government if the result was that he'd never have to live in fear of being found out. So his tax statements would list contract work as his income, separated into several payments to avoid detection.

He walked around the town, staying away from the military and law enforcement personnel. He knocked on the door of his contact in town, the young man opening up and nodding when he saw who had disturbed him. Without a word, the man came out of his house and unlocked his car, Leonard getting into the passenger seat and the man driving, moving away from the town and towards the small airport twenty miles away where Leonard's plane waited.

Now that his job was done, he looked forward to spend a few weeks at home, missing his dogs immensely. Maybe he could convince his dad to give Penny a day off so he could spend it with her and maybe he'd be able to figure out if he truly felt more for her than just physical attraction.

The words of his dad about her feelings swirling in his head, he closed his eyes and slumbered while the man drove.

* * *

**And done with this chapter. Leonard in action, what did you think? ^^**

**Review please :)**


	12. Chapter 12

**Alright, another one for this story. Took me a while, work got in the way.**

**Richard76310: Yes, but I mentioned that in the foreword of chapter one :)**

**Warriorcreed: He did, timeline wise, two months have passed since the beginning of Penny's training ^^**

**SRAM: Even the smaller 50BMG sniper rifles are pretty sizable (like the M82, right?). So a smaller weapon would be easier to transport :)**

**Enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.**

* * *

"Looking good." a familiar voice startled her as she looked at herself in the mirror, clad only in underwear and her sports bra.

"Leonard!" she shouted excitedly, seeing the man she had missed for the past two months leading against the door frame to her room.

"How are you?" he asked as she ran to him, crashing against him and hugging him hard.

"Physically, I feel great." she hummed into his neck. "Mentally, I'm exhausted."

"I told you." he said as they separated and to her surprise and joy, Leonard pressed his lips against hers, his hands moving down along her back.

"Normally, I'd like where this is going but your dad is waiting." she sighed and stepped away from him to put on her sweat pants and sweater.

"Yes, he is." Leonard nodded, walking behind her and thereby hiding his knowing smile from her eyes.

"Ah, Penny." Albert greeted her. "I see you have seen who's visiting."

"Yes." Penny grinned, unable to contain her joy. "I just hope today's training will be light enough that I can spend some time with him tonight."

"Oh, it will." Albert nodded. "Because you get the day off today."

"I do?" Penny gasped.

"Of course." Albert nodded. "I told Leonard when he dropped you off that I'd do it and I can see that you could use the day."

"I do, yes." Penny admitted.

"I heard you had to avail yourself to the services of Misses Lee." Leonard smiled at both of them.

"Oh yeah, my back muscles completely locked up one night, I couldn't move in the morning." Penny confirmed. "You know the woman?"

"Of course, I've used her services quite a lot over the years." Leonard nodded.

"Her massage felt like she was torturing me for information." Penny shuddered at the memory. "And I wanted to tell her everything, I just didn't know what she wanted me to tell her."

"But it worked." Leonard stated.

"Yeah, it did." Penny had to admit.

"Dad, something I can do for you?" Leonard asked.

"No, I have some things to take care of anyway, I could use the day off too." Albert smiled. "By the way, where are the boys?"

"Outside." Leonard pointed to the door, Albert hurrying out of the house immediately.

"Boys?" Penny looked wide-eyed at Leonard. "Do you have kids?"

"So to speak." Leonard chuckled and led her outside, where she watched Albert run around with two large dogs jumping excitedly around him, obviously happy to see him.

"Holy crap, they're big." Penny gasped. "They're German Shepherds, right?"

"No, they're actually Belgian Malinois." Leonard explained. "When I found them as pups, I couldn't bring myself to take them to the pound, so I adopted them."

"Wow, they're beautiful." Penny said and moved towards the dogs to pet them.

"Wait." Leonard stopped her and stepped right in front of her, his backs to the dogs. "Look at me and straighten your arms downwards, palms out."

"Like this?" she asked after doing what he had said.

"Yes, now stay that way." Leonard nodded and whistled.

The two dogs perked up and came over to Leonard, both sniffing at one of Penny's palms for several seconds before rubbing their heads against it, one doing it faster than the other. The dog that had sniffed her right hand left again, going back to Albert who threw a ball away while the other stayed, sitting down and even licking her hand for a second or two.

"Ah, he likes you." Leonard smiled and did a clicking sound with his tongue, the dog stopping what he was doing and moving a few feet away before sitting down.

"What does that mean?"

"Malinois usually bond only with one member of a family." Leonard told her. "They also love the others but one is always the main partner, if you will. For example, I was out with them in the forest and I ran across a class of third-graders who got excited and some of them began petting my dogs. They let the kids do it but only because I was fine with it. If I had been agitated or told them to attack, they'd have done it without hesitation."

"I see." Penny nodded. "So he has bonded to me now?"

"No, that takes a while." Leonard shook his head. "But it's a start, though further bonding will be difficult since you're not living in my house."

"I could." she giggled.

"I'll be home for the next few weeks anyway, so I can come by more often to visit and bring them." Leonard told her. "We'll see how he reacts around you."

"Do they need special treatment?"

"Oh yes, they need constant exercise." Leonard nodded. "Okay, I shouldn't say constant, but you do have to go out with them several times a day so they can get rid of their energy. If you do too little with them, their pent up energy can unload itself through aggression."

"Then how do you deal with that when you're away on a mission?" she wondered.

"I have the man who helped me train them and his daughter taking care of them while I'm away." Leonard told her. "I taught them to accept them when I'm out of town."

"Do they know what you do?" she wanted to know.

"No, as far as they know, I leave on a work trip and return a few days or a week later." Leonard said.

"So, uh... what happens now?"

"You wanna see my house?" he asked. "We can have some breakfast too and then go into town."

"Sure, let me get changed." she nodded.

"If you want to." he shrugged. "I'm a believer in wearing comfortable clothes, wherever you go unless you have a reason for dressing differently."

"Well, I'm a more uptight about that." she grinned. "I have no problem wearing sweats, but when I go somewhere, I rather dress in some jeans and a normal shirt or jacket."

"Your choice." he shrugged.

She hurried upstairs and took off her sweat pants and sweater, shedding the sports bra as well. She put on a more fitting bra and then a shirt and jeans, rounding it up with a jacket to keep some of the early morning chill away. She returned downstairs to find Leonard and Albert throwing a Frisbee each, Leonard's two dogs chasing after the objects and to her surprise and shock, both jumped against a wall and used that as leverage to get about twelve feet into the air, catching the discs out of the air with their mouths and falling back down to the ground before returning to their owner and handing the Frisbee back to each man.

"There you are." Albert stated when he saw Penny.

"Penny, this is Tyson." Leonard pointed at the dog to his left, the one who had licked her hand before. "Call him to you, lets see if he follows your command."

"How should I do it?" she asked, raising her voice to be heard. "More authoritative or more playful?"

"Like you would issue a command." he said. "When you want to command dogs, don't be playful."

"Tyson, come here!" she yelled, looking straight at the dog who immediately started moving and sitting down next to her. "Holy crap, that worked fast."

"Yep, I think he's bonding with you." Leonard laughed and turned to his father. "Don't worry, sir, I'll have her back by the evening."

"You better, young man." Albert played along. "She's got a full schedule again tomorrow. And I expect plenty of funny business to hold her over until her next day off."

"Jeez, dad!" Leonard blushed hard, Penny as well.

"Yep, the old man is still able to make his son blush." Albert laughed. "Get going you two."

"Sorry about that." Leonard said.

"No worries." Penny chuckled. "Though I am kinda surprised at how straightforward your dad is with this."

"Remember when I came up to your room on your first day here?" he asked.

"Yep." she grinned, making a popping sound with the p.

"My dad more or less ordered me to do it because of us not getting to see each other for a while after." Leonard chuckled too. "

"Does that mean you didn't want to have sex?"

"Of course I wanted to." Leonard confirmed. "I just didn't want to impose myself."

"Leonard, I certainly hope that you, uh... impose yourself more than once today." she winked at him and looked forward, past the front gate.

"Well, I'll do my best to fulfill that demand." he winked back.

"Where's your car?" she wondered.

"I came with these." he pointed forward to a pair of skates. "And I brought a second pair that should fit you."

"Why skates?"

"Because dogs need exercise, especially these and skating gives them the perfect speed to run. Not too fast, but also not slow walking." he explained as he took his shoes off and put the skates on, Penny trying on the pair he brought for her. "So, do they fit?"

"Surprisingly, yes." she nodded as she fastened the clasps. "I have some play with my toes but other than that, they fit well."

"Then lets go." he said and opened the gate, leading the dogs out of the property before handing Penny the leash for Tyson.

"By the way, what's the other one called?" she pointed to the dog whose leash Leonard was holding.

"That's Major." he replied.

"Major and Tyson?" she grinned. "How did you get to those names?"

"Look at Tyson's eyes." he said, pointing to the dog in question. "Look above and next to his right eye."

"Yes?" she did but only saw some discolored fur. "You mean the black fur?"

"Yes, those black fur patches around his eye look like Mike Tyson's tattoo." he chuckled. "And look at Major's fur right above his front legs, they are also a bit discolored, though in his case, it's lighter yellow patches. And those look quite similar to the rank insignia of a Major."

"Okay." she accepted the explanation. "And you really rescued them?"

"Yes, as I said, I found them as pups." he nodded. "Their owner told me that their mother abandoned them, so I offered to take them. Got some fake teats and raised them."

"Fake teats?" she looked at him, confused.

"Like an artificial udder, just smaller." he shrugged. "Sprayed it with her scent and these two went sucking the food out of it."

"What do you feed them in general?" she asked as they began gliding along the road on their skates, the two dogs running alongside them.

"Only high quality food." he replied. "Meat based dry food with high protein content and also high amounts of omega three fatty acids, because that's good for their joints. And wet meat in the evening. And once a month, I go to the butcher and get two cow or pork hunches, the bone with at least two or three pounds of meat on it."

"That's so cool." she said, falling for him even more.

She felt the crisp morning air, completely unused to the fact that it could be this cold that early in the year, especially since living in California for four years, where cold in September still meant seventy degrees instead of the forty-five that she was experiencing right now. What she noticed most was the fact that Albert had no direct neighbors, no houses on the other side of the road, just more bushes.

They went with a fast, but not too fast pace, the dogs running next to them and getting the physical exercise that they needed. Penny wondered where Leonard's property would be since she doubted that he had been using skates for several hours to get to his dad's house, especially given that he had been standing in her room at six in the morning.

To her surprise, it took over an hour until he took a turn towards a fence with a nice-looking house behind it, with quite a large grass field next and apparently behind it before it ended up in trees on the property.

"Jesus, when did you get up today?" she wondered after they stopped at the gate.

"The same time I get up every day." he shrugged. "Four in the morning."

"Holy shit!" she gasped. "Why do you do that?"

"I sleep four hours a night unless I'm sick." he shrugged. "To bed at midnight, I wake up at four, don't even need an alarm clock."

"I can't imagine ever getting by with that." Penny shook her head. "Especially given that you rarely drink coffee."

"I drink green tea, like my dad." he shrugged.

"Your dad grows apples and grapes on his property, do you have anything like that too?" she asked.

"Not like him, he employs people to work those, I just hire a landscaper a few times per year to take care of my property." he replied. "I have two cherry trees, some peach trees and one plum tree that usually give me some fruit and I usually let some of the townspeople come in to harvest them for their own use after I gotten myself some."

"Do they pay you?" she wondered.

"They do, but it's a fixed sum and they can get as many as they can carry during their visit. But everyone can only come in once." he explained. "As for the quality, it's first come, first serve."

"Does your land also stop two miles before the border?" she wanted to know.

"Yes." he confirmed.

"Why is that, exactly?"

"Because the border patrol needs to patrol at the border and we didn't want them going over our property all the time." he shrugged.

They rolled up to his front door, Leonard stopping and unbuckling the straps of his skates, Penny doing the same thing, He unlocked the door, opening it and entering, the dogs waiting until Penny had entered before running into the house and towards a room to the left. Penny looked around and took the room in, an antechamber with a mirror and a shoe rack leading to a larger living room, if the couch, TV set and sound system were any indicator.

"Want me to show you around?" he asked.

"Sure." she nodded.

He led her back outside and showed her the property, the trees with the fruits standing a little less organized than the ones his father had and the forest he co-owned with Albert to the left of his property. She noticed no fence lines at that area, only a few signs and wondered if animals from that forest ever came onto his property or if hunters did it as well. She decided to ask him when she got the chance when they reached what looked like a barn.

"This is my gym." he said and opened the door, leading her inside.

"Wow." Penny gasped, seeing all the equipment. "What did you pay for that?"

"All together? About six hundred thousand dollars." he shrugged. "The tubs alone were a hundred and fifty grand.

"Tubs?" she wondered and he led her into the back area, which had a strange looking outer wall, where she could see two shower stalls, a large pool with what looked like a fishing rod at its side and two covered tubs.

"This is a cold water tub." he said and opened the lid of the first one.

"Jesus, that's really cold." she commented after putting her hand in it.

"And the other one is filled with hot water." he described and opened that as well, steam coming out.

"One question, why do you keep the water hot in it?" she wondered. "Doesn't take that a lot of power to maintain?"

"Actually, no." he smiled. "That's because of how the tub is built."

"How?" she wanted to know.

"I had a friend build it with keeping the water in it in mind. Both tubs have a sophisticated filter system that cleans the water after I used it." he explained. "Also, both tubs have a double wall with a vacuum inside, which means that when they're closed and the machine has sucked all the air from the area in between, the temperature of the water barely changes because there's nothing for the water to exchange the temperature with."

"That's so cool." she said, impressed. "How often do you have to exchange the water?"

"Look." he said and took a glass from a cabinet, dipping into the cold water and holding it up in front of her eyes. "This water has been in there for almost nine months."

"Holy shit!" she gasped, seeing the clear liquid. "What about the fishing rod over that pool?"

"It's not a fishing rod." he chuckled. "You ever see those cartoons where a horse or even another person is put on a yoke and then the driver holds a carrot or whatever in front of them and they run while never getting what they're trying to reach?"

"Yeah." she nodded.

"This is similar." he pointed to the pool and she noticed the large three exhaust pipes on its left side. "You get in, tie yourself to the yoke and activate the air cannons. That way you get a current going against you that simulates you moving forward in the water despite you staying in once place."

"But what if you set a too strong current or you start swimming and want it stronger?" she asked. "Do you have to stop swimming?"

"Normally yes, but I had a remote rigged as a glove." he showed her the piece of technology. "It's essentially a double-layered leather glove with some buttons in-between the layers . The leather protects it from the water and you can control the strength of the current."

"Very nice." she nodded. "You dad has a long pool."

"I know but I didn't want such a massive thing here and this also lets you swim without having to turn around all the time." he said.

"I can see the advantages of that." she conceded. "But personally, I like a pool outside to cool off during hot weather."

"This one can be." he chuckled and pressed a button at the door, which made the roof retract and the outer wall go down into the floor, opening the pool up to the outside.

"That is so cool!" she exclaimed, open-mouthed before he led her back outside and to the house, opening the door once again and making her take off her shoes while taking his off as well.

"Well, as you can imagine, this is the living room." he said before leading her into the kitchen. "And as you can see, this is the kitchen."

"Wow, this is enormous." she gasped, the room double the size of her parents' kitchen. "What kind of foods do you eat?"

"Generally healthy." he shrugged and opened the fridge for her, revealing lots of salads and other healthy foods. "But I do like to splurge myself on some other stuff once in a while."

"Such as?" she grinned.

"Well, I do like to make chili but add spaghetti instead of rice." he winked and led her to another door. "And this is the master bathroom."

"Jesus!" she gasped. "Wow, you have a Jacuzzi?"

"Yes, it helps with recovery after training but I mostly use cold- and hot tubs for that."" he nodded. "But sometimes, I use this for relaxation."

"Nice." she giggled and followed him upstairs.

"Up here are the bedrooms and another bathroom, but smaller than the one downstairs." he described. "At the end of the hall is my study, where I do my research on my, you know, targets."

"I have to ask." she grinned. "Is your bedroom as expensively outfitted than the rest of the house?"

"Well, not per se." he shrugged and opened the second door on the right, revealing a spacious room with a king-size bed and several cabinets. "The most expensive thing in here was the mattresses."

"Really?" she looked at the furniture object. "Why?"

"Lay down on it and you'll see." he smiled and pulled the comforter away.

"Oh, wow!" she gasped when she felt the most comfortable mattress ever. "I need one of those."

"I think everyone needs one of those." Leonard nodded. "Can you imagine how much less grief we'd have in the world if everybody got a good nights sleep every night?"

"What this one made of?"

"It's a body-contorting silicon." Leonard explained. "No matter your body shape, the mattress will always hug your body. With limits, of course."

"Which are?" she hummed, feeling as if she could fall asleep right away.

"If you're on your side and keep your arm below your body, it won't dig a trench, so to speak."

"Still, can't you convince your dad to get one of those for my bed?" she giggled, opening her eyes to see him look at her with a slight smile.

"I don't think he'd do that for the guest room." he chuckled. "He has one in his bed, though."

"Aw, no fair." she moped. "Then I just have to take yours."

"Doesn't fit on your bed."

"Then I just have to take your bed." she shrugged.

"And leave me to sleep on the floor?" he laughed. "No thanks."

"No problem, you just come with me and sleep with me." she shrugged, then blushed when the double-meaning of her words hit her. "Uh, I mean..."

"I know what you mean." he winked, chuckling.

"Speaking of." she wiggled her eyebrows to him and spread her legs. "Your dad did tell us that he expects plenty of funny business, so don't you think we should do what he asked?"

"I think we should." Leonard nodded and stepped towards her, pulling at her jeans once Penny had undone the button and pulled down the zipper.

While Leonard took off his own pants and shirt, revealing his polka dot shorts and his professional assassin's physique, Penny quickly discarded her shirt and bra, just about to take off her slip when Leonard pulled it down, leaving her naked as he pulled down his shorts. Penny realized that due to not knowing he was coming, she had completely forgotten to prepare herself, not having shaved her legs or the area between it. Leonard didn't seem to care though as he lowered his head and went down on her, Penny's hips going up as she began experiencing the pleasure she had missed during the last two months.

"Oh shit, that's so good!" she exclaimed, wrapping her legs around his shoulders and using her hands to push his head harder on her.

Leonard still really had no idea what he was doing so he just continued until Penny loudly voiced her pleasure, her body convulsing beneath him. He gave her moist center a last kiss and moved up her body, peppering her body with kisses until he reached her breasts, giving both equal attention and care with fingers and mouth.

"Leonard." she panted. "Inside me, now!"

"Wait." Leonard stopped just before entering her. "I don't have any protection here."

"Oh Leonard." she giggled before wrapping one leg around his waist and pushing, flipping them over.

"Whoa." Leonard commented the sudden change in position as Penny grabbed his manhood and lined it up.

"Sweetie, I have an IUD." she told him as she lowered herself on him. "It was the one thing that Kurt made sure his girls had. The last thing he wanted to deal with was a pregnancy in case the condom failed."

"I see." he sighed at the feeling of her enveloping him.

"Now, enough about the asshole you got rid of, lets get to the funny business." she giggled and began moving her hips.

She put her hand in his and began to move her hips, picking up speed, her need for him after two months superseding her desire to take her time. It took her three minutes to climax, then another four to climax again and another five to climax a third time before he groaned and unloaded into her.

She sighed in content and lowered her upper body to kiss him, her lips connecting to his while his hands caressed her butt. With every other guy in her life, this never happened, cuddling after sex, the guys in her school falling asleep most of the time, Kurt as well, and with her clients, the only thing she wanted once they were done is get a shower and get out, not necessarily in that order.

"You know, what we just did really showed me what the training with your dad did for me." she mentioned, sitting up.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean, I just rode you for half an hour..."

"More like ten minutes." he chuckled.

"Pff, details." she waved him off. "So, I just rode you for two hours..."

"Really?" he laughed.

"Stop interrupting." she grinned. "So, I just rode you for twelve hours..."

"Uh hu." he nodded.

"And I'm not even out of breath." she giggled. "So, get your buddy down there ready for round two."

"Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way." he shrugged and got up. "Come on, I'll take you out for breakfast."

"Oh, what a gentleman." she theatrically swooned. "Who just had his penis inside me."

"He likes it in there." Leonard smiled. "Like being in a steam room with a broken light."

"Eh, what?" she looked at him confused, the panties in her hand momentarily forgotten.

"It's moist, dark and warm." he shrugged.

"Oh, Jesus." she rolled her eyes.

"What, not good?"

"Not really." she shook her head, laughing. "You're not killing anyone with your jokes."

"Yeah, I usually do that with guns, knifes or my bare hands." he conceded.

As he led her out of the house and whistled for his dogs, she wondered where he would take her, given that she had been in this town for two months but never left his dad's house.

* * *

**Alright, this chapter done. Leonard and Penny's day will continue in the next one ^^**

**Review please :)**


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